Over 40 Years have Past...

Growing up in that late 1960's and early 1970's wasn't bad. The war in Vietnam was raging full steam ahead, but my brother and I were both too young to notice or care. My father was well past the age of getting drafted and the nightly newscasts of the events in Vietnam and Cambodia served only as white noise in the soundtrack of my existence.

Summer was my favorite season, not only because school was in recess, but because I had the opportunity to spend a week with my grandparents by myself in New Jersey (my brother and I were allotted each separate weeks to visit in order to retain my grandparents' sanity).

My grandparents only lived an hour's drive away from me, but in my childlike mind, it seemed as if they lived 3000 miles away. I lived in New York City and they lived in southern New Jersey -- an area punctuated with corn fields and farms, pine barrens and lakes. Their grocery stores had odd names. My grandparents lived in a development in which each street was named after a bird and when I walked down the street, strangers would wave at me and I could wave back without feeling weird. In the evening, the night sky would get so black that if I looked up, I could see all the stars in the sky. At twilight, the chorus of the crickets, locusts and cicadas was deafening.

I slept in a pull-out bed in my grandparents' living room. I believe the sense of smell is one of the strongest senses in which to bring back memories. Even today, if I closed my eyes and let my mind drift back to 1972, it would be 11pm and I would be crawling into bed, smelling the fresh aroma of my grandmother's sheets. I cannot describe the scent except to say that it was a distinctive, light floral. I have only smelled that scent one time outside of my grandparents' house and that was on the day my grandmother died. I was sitting in Applebee's with my husband and as I was trying to fight back my tears, a gentle breeze carrying that scent drifted gently past my nose. I believe it was her coming to tell me everything would be ok.

In the mornings, I would wake up early and join my grandfather on the porch in order to watch the birds begin their day. I can still see the birds zipping back and forth, following their morning routines, blissfully unaware of their human spectators.

I was a child of the water and loved to go with my grandparents to a tiny freshwater lake called Lake Whiting. The lake was so small that one could look across the entire lake and see the opposite side. As my grandparents explained, we would sit on the "good" side of the lake -- the side where the water was clearer and there were fewer stones at the bottom. I remember opening my eyes underwater and seeing the sun shine through the water onto the pale, gold sand that was the bottom. I can still hear my grandmother call out, "Remember! Only up to your armpits!" and every so often I would stand up in the water as my grandparents sat on their beach chairs on the shore line and hold my arms up as if to say proudly, "See! only up to my armpits!"

The three of us would go to this lake every day, but the most special day of all was the one day of "my" week that my grandfather and I would go to the lake early in the morning on our own. Sometimes he would go in the water with me and sometimes he would not. In between swims, we would just sit and talk about anything and everything and nothing in particular. I was so young then and didn't realize that years later, I would give anything just to hear his voice once more calling me his "little sugarplum."

Dinner time was a favorite as we always had fresh tomatoes and my grandmother cooked all my favorite foods. At home, I always had a limit as to how much I could consume, but no so at my grandparents' house. At my grandparents' house, I was welcome to take seconds, thirds, and fourths...and I did! We had my favorite -- mashed potatoes, every night. My grandmother made them extra creamy with slabs of butter and heavy cream with never a lump. I always drank ginger ale for dinner -- only Schweppes. My grandfather would pour my ginger ale "just right" into one of their glasses which had a picture of a bird on it. No one could pour ginger ale the way my grandfather did.

Later, I would follow my grandfather to the communal garbage pails in order to dump the night's trash. All the neighbors joked with my grandfather by calling me his little shadow.

Later on in the evening, we would have ice cream treats we called "super dupers" which were ice cream cones filled to capacity (and I mean filled to capacity) with ice cream and topped off with sprinkles. My grandmother would stand in the kitchen and pack each cone with ice cream as tight as she could, daring even the slightest bit of air to infiltrate any area of the cone in which ice cream rightfully belonged.

Neither the Watergate hearings or Hurricane Belle could ruin my summers at my grandparents' house, but all good things had to to an end. I remember deciding that once I turned thirteen I would be too old to spend "my" week with my grandparents. I distinctly remember making up my mind as if it were an important, life-altering decision. In a way, my decision to end my trips to my grandparents was a milestone -- I was a "big girl" now and spending summers at my grandparents seemed so "little girl."

Years later, during my 21st summer, I spent a week at my grandparents, although under an entirely different context. I was on break from college and my grandfather had been stricken with cancer and was being operated on. My parents were in California on vacation and my brother, who was already married and out of the house could not take leave from his job in order to stay with my grandmother, who we assumed would be receiving bad news after my grandfather's surgery.

My grandmother and I took trips to the hospital every day, trying desperately to be strong for one another and failing miserably. I remember one evening as night was falling, looking out of the windows at the nursery, where nurses and new mothers were cradling newborns and wondering as my grandfather lay dying, new lives were beginning.

Years have passed and both of my grandparents are long gone. Their house is now owned by another family and the little babies I saw in the nursery all those years ago are all grown up now. Life changes, but within our hearts we always hold dear those things which no one can every take away from us -- our memories.