My grandma was a liar.  I learned this about her the day she died. She lied about her age.  I had never much thought about how old she was and I certainly hadn’t given one thought about why someone would lie about their age. But the adults around me seemed to understand.  There was an air of knowing that I had not breathed in yet.  That would come much later.  We didn’t print her birthdate on her tomb stone.  Like a sentence that had lost its first words, it felt incomplete. Something of her story left untold.

I looked out the window of the car, a little bored and trying not to cry on this day we would celebrate the end of  her life that seemingly lacked a marked beginning.   I counted the cars in her procession. So many people on this bitter January day. Did any of them know when my grandma started this life?  What did they know of her? Why were they here?   When did their story begin with her? Why did they love her?  I didn’t know their answers, but I was certain of mine.

I loved her for her pointed toe high heels that I clod around in on the hard wood floors of her bungalow

I loved her for her jewelry box full of glittery gems that felt cool in my fingers

I loved her for Tiger baseball playing on the TV and salty bowls of cocktail peanuts

I loved her for the paper thin salami she would put on my sandwiches

I loved her for the doughy sugar smell of the Polish bakery on Saturday morning

I loved her for her pink tiled bathroom with its jars of bath oils that popped open when you squeezed them

I loved her for that squishy part of her back that I could feel when she hugged me

I loved her for her arthritic hands that curved into her pink polished nails.

I loved her for her aqua blue wallet bursting with photos of my sister and I

I loved her for her jar of sugared jellied candy fruit slices and never having to ask

I loved her for coin purse that she allowed us to dig our hands in take all we could

I loved her for Saturday afternoon church with my head on her shoulder dozing as my grandfather sang in his beautiful voice

I loved her for Saturday night card games with the whirl of the card shuffler and the click of the poker chips

My counting went on and on reaching into the 100s when I lost sight of the last cars. So many people, tight in the warmth of their cars, thinking, like I was, about why they loved her.  Thinking, like I was, about all the ways she would go on and on in their lives.  They didn’t know her age.    The number of years mattered little other than perhaps there had been not enough of them. Yes, that was it.  There had not been enough.