Old Kitchen Memories

Quilted vinyl covers hid the small appliances, the toaster, mixer and blender all discretely at rest under their thin, flowered shelters. My Bubbie stood at the counters often, wiping them down with a damp, pink and white checked disposable wash cloth. While she moved her arms back and forth across the Formica, the soft, precious fat and sagging muscle underneath swayed.

At the corner of her sink was a sprayer - I loved the fact that the press of a button could force water out of a hose and all over soapy dishes or anything else I chose to squirt. There were great, thick, green bottles of seltzer water in the fridge which I wasn't sure of the use for, but they were always nestled in their spot on a lower shelf, cooling, condensation making the outside of the bottles sparkle. A black Kit-Kat clock ticked endlessly on the wall next to the fridge, tail pulsing back and forth, rhinestones reminding me of Bubbie because of her eyeglasses. I had none of these things at my own house, no seltzer, no sink sprayer, no Kit-Kat clock, these were the distinct marks of Bubbie and Papa's house.

And so was Fanny.

If I sat on the floor, Fanny would come to me, licking and nuzzling my hands. When I touched her reddish-brown forehead, her eyes would go half-mast and I felt as though she were giving me a compliment, willing me to know that I made her feel good. Her tail wags would slow and she relaxed into my touch. I was too young to remember the day Fanny became forever gone, no one told me that it had become her time, so I was never sad about it. One day she just wasn't there, her short-haired rump no longer parking on the speckled, white linoleum. According to family legend she was such a well-loved dog and so missed that I feel it an honor to have known her.

My Bubbie and Papa, both gone since 2004, are still omnipresent in my life. Our days move, people come and they go, but some stay forever.

Papa would drop a pile of the 45s he sold on the living room floor while the grandkids pawed hungrily through them. "Pick three," he would instruct each of us and I couldn't wait to spin the my new Wings or Captain and Tennille on my record player. I spent hours at the little organ in the corner of their living room, following the notes which were spelled out in letters for those less musically inclined, feeling an accomplished musician, a prodigy! when I mastered "On Top of Old Smokey." Both of my grandparents pushed fives, tens, and later twenties into our palms, telling us out of the corner of their mouths not to tell our parents, lest they find it necessary to to withhold their own gifts because we already had enough. Papa, deaf in one ear, bald on top, and with a finger which would not straighten completely, breezily joked about these deficits, but they were only reasons for me to love him more, because they were uniquely him. Bubbie, once a school star athlete, had grown round, kept her hair dyed a pinkish red, and took to wearing brightly colored monochrome outfits in bright colors - if her top was yellow, so were her pants, pantyhose, and shoes...

They were two of the loveliest, people I've ever, ever known.