My Grandmother

It was she who first let me bejewel myself with a pearly carcanet and lacquered beads. It was she who would let me press my childish hands onto her earrings when she noticed my face overflow with tears. It was she who shaped me as I am today. On her rosy shoulders there no longer dropped a fine, honey-coloured hair, but a grey mantle, to shield me from the cold, harsh world. It is she who is the centre of this reminiscence, this recollection of being adored by one. Those fine, rubicund hands heaving the logs into the fire, that jabot dress she was always clad in, the motherly touch of a woman that I recall as so gentle, although not that of my mother. I can still sense that sweet scent of ageing books lingering about her memory. Who is this woman, whose spirit has not yet become dim in my mind like the setting sun? It is my grandmother; my smiling, venerable grandmother, always waiting for me with an affectionate embrace until the very end.