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I remember walking through the white doors of the seemingly enormous home as a girl. Ahead of me, the formal dining room where the stoic black table sat. Enough seating for a troop. A place I had sat 2 times, maybe.

I walked through it, to the kitchen. Two ovens, wow. Seeing it in my mind now it seems unusually small. Maybe it was. The breakfast nook with the white table where I ate her food. Her amazing cooking which everyone loved, not just me. I stop. I feel guilt. Never able to express a love for her well enough. I always felt burdened by loyalties to my "other-side" family, the good side, the fun side, the "we just do it different" side.

Shamefully, I called her "Elsie". On more than a few occasions. Never knowing if "grandma" was the proper prelude or not.

My grief now surprises me. A sickening surprise.

I keep going into the living room. Oil paintings covered one wall. The paintings, expressions from an old friend. How they adored the artist. The expansive couch and the coffee table fit for 8. The television, which you must be out of the way of. My grandfather, lying down on the best seat in the house. My uncles, lounging too, inadvertently exposing the family jewels.

They all fade. It's back to her, the piano and me. She taught me. She loved to hear my simple notes. That was her.

She would let me dress up in her beautiful high-end clothes. Her hats, her scarves. She was classy. She was beautiful and fresh, which I understood as wealthy. I was afraid of her formality. It wasn't normal for me. Normal was loud, bombastic, over the top.

The best memory I would ever share with her was the day she gave me something she had held on to for 70 or so years. They were moving to Hawaii. I was there helping box things up. She told me she wanted to give me something and we went upstairs. She said she knew it would be in good hands. Her eyes welled. Mine did too at seeing her exposed. She handed me her bible. Her bible. I was in shock. I was flattered and told her so. I opened it to see if there was an inscription inside. There was. It said Elsie Mae Duthie. She was a child once, a young girl. I saw the proof she existed outside of my reality.

I was struck down by her openness. How could she be so good? She knew how much that simple act would mean to me? She must have known then that it would be the last I would see of her. Her tall lean body. Her sandy blond hair. Her aged smile.

I disregarded her often as my "other grandma". I felt her interest in me was small. I felt her knowledge of me limited. Purposefully limited. How wrong on all counts I have been. And now she lies dying. I cannot speak to her, she cannot speak to me.

I thought of her now in order to share family news with my husband. But as I unfold the story, more comes with it. A flash flood of memories. The piano, the kitchen, driving with her in her Lincoln. All pleasant. All pleasant.

I sit crying, missing her. I know soon she will breathe a last breath. I rehash the past several months; I told her I loved her many times. I purposefully did. Maybe to remind myself that I am that little girl who ate her rich sundaes. The same grandchild who admired her figure and hoped to endure like she had. The adolescent who had enough sense to know I liked the way she looked me.

Or maybe I said it to remind her. Or even just to make her believe, without the pressure of performance for my parents, that I really did love her. I do really love her.

Why am I so desperate to make her believe it? She already knows. She wouldn't have entrusted me with her personal book of love if she hadn't.

Learn more about this author, Brandi Powell.
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