"Their apartment was teensy. Just perfect to be four in. My grandmother let me shake water on the clothes she was ironing and let me iron the handkerchiefs all by myself. I would hand her the clothespins as she hung the wet towels on the clothesline outside. She cut up apple slices and I dusted them with cinnamon sugar. We ate them swinging on the glider behind her apartment. She taught me how to knit. How to make a daisy chain. How to play “Go Fish”.
I sat next to her sweet-smelling body on the piano bench and we sang “Que Sera Sera” and “Around the World I Searched for You” as she pecked out the notes. We played “Chopsticks” together again and again to see how fast we could go.
In the late afternoon we pushed her little shopping cart to the corner market. Lamb chops for dinner and Hershey’s kisses for walking home. We walked slowly admiring the puffy white clouds in the sky and the roses in flowerbeds.
She let me use her pumice stone on my feet during my bath and her Jean Nate bath powder after. She gently brushed my hair before I went to bed on the made up sofa. The sheets so soft against my clean skin.
The lullaby of my grandparent’s quiet conversation would soothe me to sleep. I swear I never slept deeper — my dreams were never sweeter than in that teensy apartment that was perfect to be four in."
-Gail Greenfield Randall
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