flashback friday

it's late at night and my house is quiet... all are asleep but my mind is still going. instead of an old post today, i want to share memories. more for myself than for anything else. i've been thinking about and missing my grandmother a lot lately. it's been almost two years now since she passed. the farther away we get the more the suffering and the disease and the heartbreak at the end fades and the good memories remain. i seem to miss her more and more each passing month. there used to be this little locally owned restaurant in town that she loved. they gave you a chocolate cake for your birthday. she, my mom and i use to have lunch there all the time. i can see it so clearly in my mind, as if it were yesterday. grandma's black coffee with red lipstick marks on it. her gum on the saucer. she always got soup and salad. always. we would have the same conversations. me talking about my life and her lecturing me :) i'm somewhat of the rebellious grandchild. she thought it her mission in life to set me straight. although, secretly, i think she liked that i was feisty like her. she could never say that, not one to "encourage" my waywardness, but we were cut from the same cloth. there was much more the same in us than just our long fingers and toothy smiles. that restaurant is gone now, just as she is. you can drive by where it used to be but nothing of the old remains. i can drive by her home or the place where she died but nothing of her remains. but i see her in the way i smile. in my wit. in my love for crossword puzzles. in my determination to always be right. she's still here. if i have one regret it is that she never got to meet esme. i was five months pregnant when she died. she loved babies so much. she would have rocked her for hours and laughed at her kitty impressions and nagged me that her coat isn't warm enough. she would have had her over for tea parties just like she did with me and my older daughters. she would have driven her crazy but loved her endlessly. just like she did me. but life goes on and people die and new life is born. it's just the way it is. and although esme will never meet her, she will know who she was. she will hear the stories. she will see the pictures. and she may not realize it, but she will see a little bit of grandma june every time she looks down at her own long fingers.