i woke up

thinking of my grandmother last night. well, not really thinking about her but with the smell of her in my nostrils. the smell of her rosewater soap. smell is a powerful mental ass kicker for me. my grandma died when i was twenty, my grandpa when i was twelve. and sometimes i still miss them terribly. my grandparents met in a bar in the early 1930's. they had both been married once before and both had one child. my grandpa was a lieutenant colonel in the marine corp. he joined in 1917 and retired in the fifties. i remember the stories he used to tell, the places he had been. he never spoke of the battles he had seen, only the beauty, the comedy, the adventures. i remember the sparkle in his eyes as he would talk... they drank scotch every night and we would all sit at the dining room table after dinner. he didn't sit at the traditional head of the table, he sat at the wide side of the table where he had a view of the kitchen and the living room. he was king of his castle, but ruled it with a gentle hand, one that could cup the side of your face as he kissed your forehead. my grandpa was a small man of welsh descent, he stood 5'4" and was trim his whole life. my grandma was a big woman who's swedish ancestors had walked from new york to the great salt lake and then on to california. her grandmother was born in sacramento just before the gold rush. my grandpa was an atheist, my grandma's family were mormon. they were an odd couple and they were madly in love. everyday, every minute, of their lives together. after he died she waited, patiently everyday, for eight years to join him my grandma had my father when she was forty. he was their only child and they cherished him. my parents met when they were eleven. they were best friends and married in january of the year they turned twenty. i was born february of the next year. my brother, summer of the following year. the next winter my father was killed in a traffic accident on his way to work. he was on a motorcycle, took a turn too wide, the truck coming the other way took it not wide enough. he was twenty two. his death devastated them. i know that now. i knew it when i was young, subconsciously, but it never affected how they loved us. they rarely spoke of my father, neither did my mother. i remember when something would come up about him my grandmother would whisper his name, "eddie" and her head would bow, her shoulders would slump and the conversation would end. it was only when i was older and spoke to other members of my family did i really begin to know anything about him. another story… my grandpa built a house in the high desert after he retired. it was a small house, surrounded by a canopy of oak trees with a cushion of dichondra below them. my grandpa had a rose garden, my grandma made potpourri from the petals and stored it in jars that my grandpa had collected from all over the world during his military career. i have two of those jars, one from palestine and one from japan, that still contain her rose petals. grandpa was a voracious reader, and earned his masters in history at the age of sixty three. i have his thesis on the civil war. my grandma painted, most of her paintings were of the desert that surrounded their home. i inherited their loves, books, art and the quiet beauty of the earth. when i spent time with them without my mother or brother, my grandma let me sleep in bed with her. they had separate twin beds. i loved the sound of my grandpa's soft snores and the ticking of the old big ben alarm clock they had. waking up in the morning, i would lay there and listen to all the birds outside the high louvered windows of their room. i was in heaven there, then. and after more than forty years the smell of rosewater takes me right back there.