It was always cold there...

GRANDMA


Every memory I possess of my father's mother is dark, illuminated only by a small low-wattage swivel lamp and the grey glow of an old TV on its last life, a fuzzy haze of stories on cable and the candlelight effect of that single incandescent bulb. It smells like old burlap furniture steeped and soaked in decades of cigarette smoke, pure and unfiltered, rolled by my grandmother's tiny leather and tin rolling machine. It tastes like aspartame and room temperature butter on toast, and over-steeped deep brown tea gone cold in the chilly cinderblock house. I miss those days.