Grandma's Wine Song

Today is the death anniversary of my mother's mother.  She wore long skirts with extremely deep, practical pockets. Her kitchen was a source of wonder to me. She reheated dishwater ("amazing" according to me, and "disgusting" according to my aunt), and put every scrap of food to use. She was notorious for packing leftover food away into the smallest possible container that would fit it. Her bologna sandwiches, stuffed peppers, and salmon chowder with Cheez-Its were revelatory. 

Despite being busy and pragmatic, her sense of humor often came through. I remember once sitting in an armchair at her house, reading a book, and feeling a hand tickling my head. Assuming it was my brother, I reached up quickly and quite firmly grabbed what turned out to be her thin, mischievous wrists. 

Her family was from Slovenia. She lost her brother in WWII, and worked hard to help her family make it in America. She was hard of hearing all of her life, and essentially deaf in her later years.

Grandma was tough as nails.

One time, I was with her at the airport. She was riding down the escalator, near the bottom, when another traveler near the top of the escalator dropped her hard suitcase and watched in horror as it started sliding. Shouting did nothing, since she couldn't hear us, and we could only watch it gather pace as it got closer and closer to her, finally slamming into the back of her legs. She barely flinched, somehow stayed standing, and simply looked around to see what hit her. Grandma was tough as nails.

Here she is, singing a folk song in Slovenian about wine. I still miss her.