Pepermint & Butterscotch Poem by Alissa Greene

Pepermint & Butterscotch



my grandmother....wait i dont know y im getting proper now cuz i called her nana.....my nana had a thing for candy and perfume and lotion....and she was old school so chanel no.5 and simular smells were a given...used 2 play dress up in her closet..which was a scene to see...(like imagine a four year old in clothes of a women who is about 5'7 and wears a size 9 shoe) but the smells were killer...5 different perfumes...and all she'd do is smile and say dont you look nice.

I was constantly trying to be like her. I started off with the candy. She used to eat peppermint &butterscotch hard candies (u know, the ones all old ppl eat) So i used to eat them too.. Nevermind that i hated butterscotch...and nevermind that as a little kid i hated hard candy. If nana did it, i wanted to do it to.

When I was six, nana was diagnosed with a rare type of bone cancer. Kemo took her hair, so i wanted my hair to be short & curly like baby hair too. Of course as a 6 year old, I didnt understand that Kemo was a painful treatment that took your hair with it. All i knew is that I wanted to be like nana.

Shortly after the hair, Nana broke her arm. She got a sling, so i begged for a sling. Somthing that looked like a sling; a scarf, maybe to tie around my arm. I never got the sling, and i never successfully got a scarf to stay.

The realization that I couldnt be exactly nana set in. I got scared. I got scared because I knew she'd be leaving soon. Nana had a hospital type bed set up in her living room. She had been asleep for three weeks but we were told that she could still hear us. I told her about school, I told her about my friends, I told her I loved her. She never responded but I could feel her love. It shined around her. On the third week relatives began to gather. My aunt and cousin stayed at nana's house, so I wanted to stay too. I wasnt aware that while I was sleeping, nana was slipping away. She was being raised to meet her Savior. Nana left us, but left her memories with us.

I was looking through one of my pocketbooks and caught the faint smell of butterscotch candy. It's amazing how memories are triggered...

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Callie Carroll 16 July 2009

Nice remembrance, Alissa.

0 0 Reply
READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
Close
Error Success