Grandma Kinda

My grandmother died when my mom was only 18. When I was born my great Aunt Deanie, who had promised to take care of my mother when her sister died, came to the hospital to see me and dubbed herself my grandma. My mom reminded her that she wasn’t really my grandmother and she replied, “I am her Grandma, kinda.”

Thus, my Grandma Kinda was born. I actually didn’t know this whole story until just a handful of years ago. I never thought about it to be honest. The technicality didn’t matter; she was my Grandma Kinda and absolutely one of the biggest influences in my life thus far.

We used to go see her and my Uncle Don every weekend and Grandma Kinda would take me on dates about every month to this little soda shop in the old Cinderella City mall. In the back wall of her house, just off her kitchen, was a little milk box built into the wall. It was my treasure chest. That’s where all of my toys, coloring books, crayons and surprises were kept. Every week she’d add a little something in there for me to discover.

She always had two bags of marshmallows in her kitchen. One was kept carefully closed so that the marshmallows would stay soft and squishy for hot chocolate. The other was left callously open so that the marshmallows would get all hard and chewy. The hard ones were my little after lunch treats (or just given on the sly). I would go into the den, sit at her old spinning loom desperately trying to figure out what it was for, wish that her little Teacup Poodle, Twinkie, would come sit next to me, and as slowly as possible, eat my marshmallow.

Grandma Kinda taught me to say flutterbye and scutterbotch. Grandma Kinda taught me to always look at the eyes; if there was kindness there, then I should go out of my way to bring it into my life. Grandma Kinda taught me about the absolute beauty in peonies. Grandma Kinda taught me about perseverance in love, even when it changes and especially when it was hard, to never, never stop loving.