Growing up I basically lived at my grandmothers house. Every weekday morning I’d ride in my mom’s purple van to my grandmas chocolate chip cookie smelling cottage at the beach. Everything was exciting there. Cleaning dishes wasn’t just cleaning dishes, it was playing pretend. The spatula was a surfboard, my purple sippy cup was a person and the pointy forks were medal shovels. Puzzles, mostly glow in the dark ones, were always laying on the old wooden dining room table. Jumping from bed to bed wasn’t forbidden, it was encouraged. When I walked in the door, my grandmothers warm, tan arms would wrap around me and I would feel safe and loved.

A box full of treasures was usually my source of entertainment. A rusty pin that wouldn’t open was always my favorite. The little N symbol on it looked cool and my grandfather had gotten it while he was defending our country in Germany during World War II. Golden heart charms on a bracelet was my other favorite item. Names were engraved on each heart. That would go around my small wrist while the pins would go on my grandmas bright blue oversized fleece coat that I was wearing. The items in that box would never get old, no matter how many times I held them in my tiny hands or asked the same pointless questions about them. Each and everyday I spent at that gray cottage, I would look through that smooth, brown box.

Numbers are something most little children struggle with. A deck of red cards would help my brain absorb and remember how to count. How did that happen? You might ask. My grandmother would take that thick deck of playing cards and deal them out. “Do you have any 6’s?” She would ask. I’d respond with a nod or a shake of the head accompanied by a squeaky, high pitched yes or goldfish. Counting was the easy part, the fact that I had to say go fish instead of goldfish, which I usually said, was the hard part. The game would continue on. During this, I didn’t realize how much I was actually learning. My grandma was an amazing teacher.

Every time I walked up to the silver, medal, cold doorknob to that cottage, I was excited. New things happened everyday and I never knew what to except. Was I going to make a fort out of cardboard I found on the deck? Would the big TV, with old fashioned dials, actually turn on? Was I going to get to ride in the back of the old teal station wagon, facing the trunk, to big daddy’s and get a big chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream cone with chocolate jimmies sprinkled on top like little raindrops of happiness? I didn’t know and that feeling of not knowing, rushed through my body and made a smile spread across my face.