Grandma Was My Hero

In my earliest memory of Grandma, she was sitting on the front porch steps, smoking her corncob pipe. She wore a long black dress, black shoes with thirteen buttons up over her ankles, and dark hair that fell to her waistline but which she managed to pile on top of her head with one large mother-of-pearl barrette. I remember that she was telling stories to me and my brother and one or two stray neighbor kids.
Grandma had come to live with us when Grandpa died, and we had discovered that she was more interesting than the Saturday horror movie about Mudmen or dragons. She would take a puff on the corncob and begin with "By cracky, them was the times." She would tell us about the time Grandpa cut off his thumb chopping wood, and how she sewed it back on with darning thread. Or the time cousin Alton fell into the big hole in the outhouse, headfirst, and what a job she had getting him out of there. She was our rockstar, and also the first multi-tasker I ever knew. She could shell peas, bake bread, rock the baby and dictate a recipe all at the same time. She was one of the best things that ever happened to my life. I would give anything to hear again the peal of her laughter, or feel the warmth of her hug. She never had to say "I love you." We were surrounded by it and we knew it.