by Roshan Richards

Created on: October 30, 2008

That's Why I Read

It's been too many years ago to admit to now, but it is a more vivid memory than many I have of that time. It was winter, and I was home visiting from college. Mom and I were in the den catching up on our everyday lives as the snowstorm outside began to settle into heavy drifts, the wind dying with the sun. The den was the place where all of our family's major conversations seemed to have taken place over the years, but I was unsuspicious as we talked of the coming holidays, shopping lists, movies we wanted to see, and what we should fix for supper. Suddenly Mom's expression tightened slightly and she asked, "When you think of me in a general sense, what do you see?"

I sat there dumbfounded. It had become one of "those" moments smack dab in the middle of our concern for the proper preparation of spaghetti. I could see that this was important to my mother because she wouldn't look at me. She just kept on looking through her recipes as if she had asked if I preferred white or red sauce tonight. Stalling for time and scrambling for something good to say in response, I said, "What do you mean?"

"Well, when I think of my mother, I always think of her standing over the stove with her left hand on her hip and her right hand stirring something. You know what I mean? I will always think of her as cooking or baking something."

I did know what she meant. I could see the picture clearly, too. Grandma was known for her biscuits, bread, stews, meat gravy, and chicken and dumplings that "anyone could make with Bisquick." That vision brought to my mind the many times as a child she had given me hunks of bread dough that I would play with entirely too long before eating, the legion of grilled cheese sandwiches that she had cut into pieces to teach me my fractions as I ate them, and the infamous taffy recipe that I had found once among her things, which she said we would make "next week" but never did. Yes, I could see it all clearly, but that wasn't the vision of Grandma that had imprinted itself upon me.

"The way I will always see Grandma is with her glasses on, slumped slightly down in a chair, asleep with her chin on her chest and an open book in her lap." I was a master of diversion.

Growing up I was fortunate to spend a lot of time at my grandmother's house while my parents worked. Her house was a virtual library. Walls were lined with bookshelves that heaved under the weight of too many occupants. Stairways and closets and corners were stuffed with boxes of

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