Grandma didn't bake cookies or tuck me in with iodine quilts. She rolled her own cigarettes, took her coffee black, and cursed like a sailor. She was married three times, had one annulment, and had more than a few fist fights in her time (her stories were notorious). Sunday morning she never missed "Meet the Press" and at 6:30 p.m. ET, she was tuned into ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, rain or shine.

I went to her house every day after school. She must have bought me every Little Golden Book there as. She told where she was when J.F.K was shot and she taught me how to play checkers. She sang Patsy Cline's "Crazy" to me and we watched It's a Wonderful Life in July; she had a thing for Jimmy Stewart.

Grandma had a wooden closet that stood off the ground. The closet had two mirrors and golden handles. When I would spend the night at her house, which was quite often, I would tip toe into her room and open the closet. I would find dozens of dresses and tiaras she wore long ago. Once Grandma caught me looking through her wondrous wardrobe, my endless treasure chest, she put her hands on my shoulders and said, "When I'm gone, this is all yours. Along with this; come over here."

She ushered me to her dresser that contained various jewelry boxes. The rings, necklaces, and bracelets were like setting eyes on Utopia. She held up a gold ring with an emerald stone, "See this here; this one Kenny gave me before he took off to Europe. You remember Kenny, don't you? He's the only man I really ever loved. We were madly in love, but, of course, I could never go with him. Your father was only 15 and I couldn't uproot him." Grandma continued to tell me the history behind each of her precious pieces of jewelry and reassured me that they all would be mine one day.

Grandma sat through the whole 3 hours and 58 minutes of "Gone With the Wind" at least once a week with me even though she abhorred the movie. She thought Clark Gable was highly overrated and Vivien Leigh was too good looking for her own good. She didn't have enough money to buy a Christmas tree, so when I made one out of paper at school, she hung it up on her wall, and there it stayed 365 days a year, 7 days a week.

On one of the rare nights I spent the night at my own house, the power went out. My mother told my brother and I to sleep on the living room floor while she slept on the couch. She must have surely have thought that I was asleep because she talked on the phone to an unknown person about how she was leaving my dad. I listened attentively but strangely; I felt nothing. Earlier that day I had snuck one of Grandma's rings home with me. As I listened to my mother threaten to leave my father if he didn't show up in the next hour, I ran my fingers over the diamond ring; I knew everything would be okay.

When the fighting between my mother and father would intensify, I would go over to my Grandma's and spend the night. In the morning, I would rise to see her standing on the back porch, coffee in hand, wearing a forest green robe. I would come behind her and put my arms around her thick waist. Nothing in my little world was wrong when I was around her. When I packed the last of my books and toys in a trash bag and tossed them in a U-Haul that was headed to my new house with my family, minus my father, nothing phased me. I knew later that day Grandma and I were going to read Chapter 2 of Black Beauty after we went to Michael's to by a pattern for my Halloween costume and right before we made a chocolate cake; she always allowed me to lick the bowl after we were done. When my dad went MIA and my mom was dating a guy that once installed our satellite system, I didn't care. After all, Grandma's house was only a block away and today we were going to walk to the park with her best friend Sharon.

I never knew my Grandma when she wasn't sick. I remember constantly wondering how she would have been if she had been well. Most of my memories of her consist of her constant discomfort. Her pain. Her endless amounts of pills and her complaints of doctors and hospitals.

Even though I had moved to a new town and went to a new school, my days of being the new kid never seemed to bother me; every weekend my mother would embark on the forty-five minute trip to Bakersfield to drop her daughter off at her ex-mother-in-law's house. Friday had approached slowly that week. My days were filled with school, dance class, and the trials and tribulations of being a sixth grader, but Friday couldn't come quicker for me; Friday was when I saw Grandma. That particular Friday I remember very vividly. I had called and called Grandma all afternoon to remind her that I, her beloved granddaughter, was coming to visit her that weekend. When she didn't answer her phone, I didn't think much of it; her dogs were always knocking her old rotary phone off the hook. When we arrived at Grandma's house my brother and I eagerly ran to the front door and banged on the door. When Grandma didn't come, my mom told us to stay in the front yard because she was going around the back to see if someone would answer; she told us not to follow she didn't have to tell me; I already felt sick to my stomach. It couldn't have been more than two minutes before she returned. She rushed to us with tears running down her face and repeated over and over "Your Grandma is gone, she's gone, she's gone!"

I ran. I turned left and ran. I ran down the street and turned a sharp right and ran. Then when I couldn't run anymore, I walked. I was trembling all over and I kept repeating over and over "I want my Daddy; I want my Daddy; I want my Daddy." He was my grandma's son and my only link to her now. I walked five blocks and finally ended up on Alta Vista Street where Sharon, Grandma's oldest and dearest friend, resided. I knocked on her door and naively said, "I think Grandma is dead." She let me and in and reassured my greatest fear, "Yes baby, she's gone." I don't even remember how I got back to Grandma's house, but when I did, my mom rushed to me and held me. She had been looking for me all over.

Weeks following Grandma's death I went back to her house with my father and his girlfriend. We were there to gather and pack our things. My dad warned me that a couple of days after Grandma had died her house had been broken into and all her valuables had been stolen, including her jewelry. I felt my throat tighten and my stomach felt like it was twisted in a thousand knots. That was my jewelry! That was all I had left of Grandma. That was all I had.

She was gone. The bulletproof windows of her house were shattered and her nonflammable walls were burnt. My safe haven was no more. My facade of a perfect world was diminished. My rock, my grandma, was gone. Grandma's death taught me something. I couldn't pretend that my problems didn't exist because they did. When she was alive was nothing was wrong but when she went she took everything. My childish outlook on life would be forever altered.