by Suzi George

Created on: July 11, 2009

You never seem to notice the musty smell of your grandma's house when growing up but the memories of being there last a lifetime. On one particular day, we bounded into Nanny's house to be greeted by her barely five foot frame and homemade cookies.

"Oh look!" she clapped her small, wrinkled hands, "My babies are here!" The excitement in her voice was genuine as was her love for us. My little sister, not quite two, would immediately toddle to Nanny's basket by her chair, pat the chair and call for Nanny to come sit. Nanny, of course, would happily oblige. The book my sister picked out was always the same..'Little Kitty." Nanny must have read that book a million times and each time, she read it as though it was the first.

I remember lying on the floor on my stomach, my brothers followed suit and we would put our chins in our hands to watch in rapt attention. Nanny read each page with zest, smiles and eyebrows that seemed to dance with each word. Although we had heard the book as many times as she'd read, we still loved to hear our Nanny's voice and watch her facial expressions. My sister would alternate staring at Nanny and staring at the book. Her pink pacifier bobbed up and down as she sucked vigorously on the little rubber peacemaker as my mother liked to call it. Each weekend, I counted the minutes until we left to see our Nanny. I often wondered if Nanny anticipated our visits as much as we looked forward to them. As my mother drove us to her quaint little house, I made the very grown up decision to ask her.

"Nanny?" I asked on one particular visit.

"Yes my angel," Nanny responded.

"Do you miss us when we go home?" Nanny's head tilted and her familiar smile, eyebrow raise and her soft laugh echoed throughout the house. She pulled me into her lap and kissed my forehead.

"When you go home, my house is very empty and I'm sad. But, I know when you come back, I'll be twice as happy so of course I miss you, all of you," she poked me in my belly and made me laugh. The smell of her floral perfume mixed with her hairspray permeated my senses. When I wasn't with Nanny, anytime those smells wafted through the air, it set off my visions of Nanny reading to us, cookies baking in the oven and running through the house in total abandon.

A visit to grandma's house is the most fun I had in my young life. When my Nanny died, I was crushed but I knew, somewhere in Heaven, Nanny was reading books to the little ones there.

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