You may not have ever met my Grandma, but you should have. She was beautiful; she would have taken your breath away. First of all, she was naturally pretty. She didn’t wear a lot of make-up, just a light colored lip gloss and some pink blush. Occasionally, she would brush mascara on her eye-lashes, but only on special events. One of her best features was her hair. It was silver and clung to her head in tight curls; it was cut just above her ears and looked like a small waterfall framing her face. And her eyes, they were bright blue and twinkled when she laughed. My Grandma owned the most magnificent earrings, for every holiday and every animal and hoops, big and small. She had silver fountains and jewels that sparkled in the sun. She wore them all the time. “I have to show my personality somehow,” she would laugh. I used to love to help her get ready, though it only took a few minutes. But, those minutes are my best memories of all. Those were the minutes when she taught me the most important thing I learned as a teenager, that beauty comes from within. She would stand at her mirror putting in the earrings I had picked for her and she would say, “Sweetheart, for me, always remember that you don’t need anything to become pretty. No, the way you become truly beautiful is with your actions and the way you speak.” I lived by those words. In fact I wrote them down so I would never forget them and hung them on my wall in a sparkly green frame where I could see them every day. You see, in middle and high school everyone is trying to push themselves to the top, to become the best and to convince you that you aren’t pretty or popular. And those times when I was sure that I was nothing, those words would soothe my fears. 
      Through my childhood, every second Sunday I would go to my Grandma’s house and spend a few hours with her, chatting about my life. Many of those conversations ended in tears. My parents had divorced when I was seven. Then my Dad moved to Boston and left my Mom without an income and me without a father. That was a very hard time for me, but my Grandma got me through it with her kind words and encouragement. And because my Dad was so far, everything from Christmas to birthdays was a challenge. I would tell her all my secrets and she would share hers. We were friends, of course I had others, but Grandma was my best friend, my shoulder to cry on and my support. Throughout it all she was there as my teacher, mentor, encourager and friend, being what my mom never had time to be.

      On June 21st my beloved Grandma died. It was a Sunday and my fifteenth birthday. I had slept over the night before with my Grandma, we had gone shopping and to my favorite restaurant. And that day my Dad was coming to take me to visit him in Boston. It all happened so quickly, my Grandma passing on I mean. We were home; cooking waffles together, our favorite meal, when she said she was feeling tired and that she was going to go get some medicine for her headache. I nodded to her but I was fully absorbed in stirring. A few minutes after she left the room I heard a crash. I called out to her but she didn’t answer. After a minute I walked into the room. I gasped when I saw her on the floor. She had a cut on her head - maybe it was from banging it on the table when she fell but it looked awful. I ran over to her, I was terrified. “Grandma, Grandma, can you hear me?” I asked. “It’s going to be okay.” But as soon as I said it I knew it wasn’t true, things weren’t going to be okay, I was losing my best friend. I was about to run out of the room to call the ambulance when I heard her cry out for me. I ran to her side. “Grandma, what is it?”
      “Honey, remember that you’re beautiful because of your heart, remember beauty comes from within, you are beautiful for who you are…I love you my sweet child.” She whispered.
       “I’ll remember Grandma, please…please Grandma, it’s alright just let me call the ambulance…Grandma I love you,” I sobbed. But, by the time I got the words out it was too late. She was gone. Slowly, I put my head down on her chest and breathed in. She smelled sweet and clean like laundry detergent. A smell I remembered and loved. And then, I cried and cried and cried.
      Eventually, I guess I got up from my misery and called my mom because I heard her at the door a little while later. She ran in and hugged me while at the same time she got out her cell phone and called the ambulance. Everything else went by slowly and yet I can’t really remember any of it. There were a lot of tears involved and lots of hurt. My mom drove me to the hospital and then home where I got into bed and cried myself asleep. I didn’t even remember that it was my birthday because it was the worst day of my life. 
      On Friday, the day of the funeral, my Dad came to drive me. I was wearing a short sleeved black dress and a dark blue scarf. I had on a pair of my Grandma’s earrings, small silver hoops and a silver chain with my birthstone hanging from it, a diamond. Grandma had bought it for me on my seventh birthday. I climbed into the backseat because I didn’t feel like sitting in the front with my Dad. He hadn’t been helpful the past few days. He had come but he hadn’t exactly been there. Whether he was on the phone or composing an email he hadn’t been with me or my mother. I stared out the window watching the trees fly by until they were blurred by my tears. 
      “What’s the matter Steph?” my Dad asked, “I… I’m really sorry about your Grandma.” 
      “Just be quiet,” I thought to myself, “I can’t take this right now.” 
      “I can’t imagine how you feel right now,” he said without sympathy. That was when I lost it. The pain that had been building up in my heart for my whole life poured out.
      “Just shut up,” I screamed. “You wouldn’t know because you weren’t here, if you had been here for me you would have known. You’re never here and when you are you just make it hard for us. Why, why, why can’t you just understand? Don’t just go Dad, I need you…Mom needs you.” My dad looked at me with so much pain in his eyes I couldn’t stand it, so I looked away.
      “Stephanie, I’m so sorry, I had no idea you felt this way. If you need me I’m just a phone call away.” Dad said, trying to comfort me.
      “But Dad, you’re not, you’re hundreds of miles away and you wouldn’t come anyway.”
      “Oh sweetheart, I would,” he said. I started crying even harder and he reached out and hugged me. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. And, somehow, I believed him. Just then the car swerved throwing me and my father to the side. I laughed a little, and he laughed too…well more of a chuckle I guess, but somehow it made me feel better, as though I wasn’t as alone as I thought I was.
      The next few weeks were really hard on me. Mom and I were going through Grandma’s stuff together which caused me a lot of grief. I remember fingering each article of clothing remembering where we (Grandma and I) were the last time Grandma wore it, and ruining most of her scarves with my tears. But, what I remember most is that I got to choose one pair of earrings to keep because the rest were going to be sold. It wasn’t hard, I chose Grandma’s favorites. They were tiny, sparkly, green squares.
      When I got home that night I got into my PJs. But, when I pulled my shirt over my head my earrings, Grandma’s favorites, fell onto the floor, one was broken in half and lay on my wood floor and the other had dropped on my desk and the green paint had chipped. I collapsed onto my bed, sobbing. “I’ve lost her, I’ve lost her forever.” I cried. Then my Mom walked in and put her hand on my back. She rubbed back and forth like she had when I was a baby.
      “Oh honey, she’s not gone,” my Mom murmured. “She is still in your heart where nothing can steal her away from you.”
	“But, the earrings,” I sobbed.
      “My mother once told me,” Mom said, “that no worldly possessions can ever take the place of your memories.” Then my Mom caught my head in her hands and kissed me on the forehead, “I love you and I’m so proud of you,” she said. But as she walked out of the room I saw tears in her eyes. I looked up to see her go when a certain green frame caught my eye. I read the words over and over until they didn’t make sense any more.
      “Oh, Grandma,” I whispered. “Thank you for everything, thank you for what you have done for me, I’ll miss you.”
      After a while I learned to live without my Grandma, my Dad started coming more often and my Mom got a better job so she wasn’t as busy any more. But, there was always a hole in my heart where my Grandma should have been. I would look at my green frame and think about her. I still had my memories but I would never again have her. Never again would we curl up on the couch to watch home videos or make waffles together just how I liked them, with peaches and whip cream. Never again could I choose her the perfect earrings to match her outfit. Never again I give her a great big hug and say, “I love you,” because, no matter what anyone said, she was gone forever, my wonderful, beloved Grandma who was always there for me was…gone.  I wish I could have spent more time with her, or told her yet again how much I loved her. And I wished that I told her how much I appreciated her because she had touched my life and made a big mark, one that I could never erase. So for you Grandma, for the time you spent with me, for the gifts you gave me, for the memories you shared with me and especially for the things you taught me I dedicate this story to you, this story of your love that changed my life.
The Green Frame, 6-8, p. 1