For several years of
my childhood, Grandma Ruth was essentially the person who raised me.
My parents had separated.
Mom was working two jobs.
So from age seven until I was twelve, I lived in Grandma’s small yellow house on Poplar Street.
She grew tomatoes in the backyard.
Old country songs were almost always playing somewhere in the house.
She could whistle through two fingers louder than anyone I had ever met.
And she cheated shamelessly at Scrabble while insisting she had never broken a rule in her life.
Grandma died nine years ago.
March 14th.
For the first few years after she passed, every March was difficult.
I talked about her constantly.
Sometimes I cried.
Sometimes I told Julian stories he had already heard several times.
Eventually, though, I stopped mentioning the date.
I didn’t want every March to become a month of sadness.
And I didn’t want Julian to feel responsible for
