The point at which I lost it...

I found this letter in my grandmother's vanity in her bathroom. As you can see by the date, I wrote it when I was 6. The fact that she kept something like this for so long in a place she went through every day gives you a glimpse of the kind of person she was.

While going through my grandparents' museum of a house this weekend, we found tons of old pictures. She has some really great shots from when we were all kids. I'm in the process of scanning them now. Looking back on all of the good times we had makes this hard stuff a little easier.

Going through her clothes, costume jewelry and personal effects, my cousins and I got a real kick out of some of the stuff. It showed us a side of grandma that we never got to see. A woman who was a fashion maven, sporting some choice polyester paisley and tiny-waited frocks. She's a woman I wish I had known even better. And in a way, knowing this side of her helps me understand myself better.

At one point, knee deep in dusty clothes, my cousin asked me what I thought grandma would say if she could see us digging through her old outfits. I thought about it and told her that she would probably get a big kick out of it. In fact, she would probably be encouraging us and giving it away anyway.


When I saw Veronica on Saturday I showed her a few of the pics of my grandma when she was young. She gasped and remarked that she finally sees how I resemble my family. My brother looks a lot like my mom with some of my dad's feature. For all I knew I looked like the milk ma, but when you see pics of my and my grandma side by side, there is no denying where I come from. And let me tell you, the woman was a hottie. Not such a bad legacy, not at all.