Grandma

When I close my eyes and think of my Grandma Evelyn I think of colors. Not pastel "grandma" colors but bright, loud colors. Nothing polite about them.
I see brightly colored quilts blowing in the wind on a clothes line. The fresh air is mingled with a slightly pungent hog odor - not terrible- just...real.
I see bright yellow buttercups and glowing orange tiger lilies growing on the bank of her yard.
I smell cornbread and country ham.
I see red. She loved red.
Her cards and letters were full of colorful images and her conversations were nothing but colorful. She was never afraid to speak what she thought. Nothing polite about that either.
She was the most real person that I have ever known.
She let me dance on the dusty floor wearing the fanciest most colorful clothes she could find. Nothing wrong with sitting on a quilt to have a picnic that took her and Granny and Maggie a year to make. Nothing wrong with muddying up the bottom of a new skirt to catch brown frogs in the creek.
What else would you use a new beautiful red head scarf for than to walk to the outhouse in the rain?
Her best bowl was perfect for crouching under the cherry tree and picking cherries.
What is there to be afraid of?
Could a little girl grown up be any luckier to have her as a grandmother?
No.
The world is better because you were here.