aprons and oatmeal.

this is a short essay I wrote for a contest here in town, or rather this is an essay I wrote for me and my grandma, prompted by an contest my mother set up.

Aprons & Oatmeal

I think of my grandmother mostly in the mornings, when I’m making my breakfast oatmeal. She was short, and round, and as long as I can remember had grey hair . Like her thick german accent her apron was everpresent, whether she was cooking in the kitchen, weeding the garden or teaching me to play chinese checkers.

She came from Europe as a child, I remember her telling me stories of hearing cannon fire coming from just over the hills during the great war, how when she got to this country she couldn’t speak any English, and how she couldn’t understand the teacher at school up in northern Alberta. I remember sneaking cookies from her kitchen, and teaching my little sisters to do the same. I remember sitting in the shade at her house in Salmon Arm, shaving cabbage for sauerkraut, shelling peas for winter and digging potatoes in the fall. I remember her chopping firewood in the winter, and having to find her to start the lawnmower for me. As a teenager I would escape to grandmas house when I needed to escape from my home for a while, she would always listen to my troubles when I cared to share them, and would never pry when I didn’t. As I grew bigger and bigger it sometimes seemed that she grew smaller and smaller, in size though not in spirit - though I could have probably carried her with one arm, she could still stop me in my tracks with a single word.

My Grandma wasn’t loud or flashy, she wasn’t given to fits of anger or outbursts of displeasure. She was strong and quiet, and in some ways she was a lot like her breakfast oatmeal, simple, wholesome, hearty and good. She was always there when I needed her and she always gave me a warm feeling inside. I still love my oatmeal, and everytime I make up a pot for my own little girl I think of my Grandma and smile.