Grandma

She looked beautiful when I walked into the lobby. Her hair was fixed, makeup done, and she had a big smile on her face.  Today was the first time I went to visit my dear Grandma in her new "home", a nursing home.
No one knew I had driven past the nursing home minutes earlier, and was parked in an empty church parking lot, crying and trying to pull myself together before I went in.
We ate lunch together and I got to see her new room, which reminded me of my college dorm room, but she had even less space.  We sat in the "sunroom" for a couple hours and visited.
After our visit, my mom took me to my Grandma's house, for what may be the last time before it goes up for sale.  I wanted one last chance to get a few of my Grandma's belongings that are special to me-her broken mirror that I used to watch her use when she painted on her eyebrows, two spools of thread-my Grandma used to make some of the most beautiful quilts, and a glass out of her cupboard that I remember drinking out of ever since I was a little girl.
My Grandma is a special part of my life. For the past 33 years, I have gone to her house for nearly every major holiday. Some of my fondest childhood memories are visiting her in the summer and getting to spend days at her house.

Today I wish I could have just been a child again,
to have my mom and dad drop me off at Grandma and Grandpa's for the week (at their old house when Grandpa was still living)
to work a jigsaw puzzle on the floor
to sit on their porch and listen to the birds
to have my own cup of coffee that they let me drink
to play in the gravel driveway
to pick seeds from her 4 o'clock plants
to go to the grocery store where Grandma would buy me ritz crackers and tang
to take a bath in the old claw foot tub with her pink bubble bath
to sleep by the window with the attic fan blowing
to go down to the basement and watch my grandma do laundry then hang it on the line to dry

I am thankful to still have my Grandma.
But today I am sad. Sad because I will never get to go to Grandma's "house" to visit her again.