gram used to take my brother and i for trips in her car. it was a large four door with bad springs. i don't remember what kind of car, maybe my father does. she would put me in the back seat of the large blue land yacht and drive down centreville road. we didn't call it centreville road, however, we called it "weeee!"

in my five year old mind, it felt like we were going a hundred miles an hour. it was a straight shot. halfway between the two highways was a small rise in the road. we would wait for it; large glaring smiles peeking over the front seats, eyes trained on the pavement, waiting to inhale.

"weeee!" she would yell as we crested the bump. "weeee!" we would yell. it felt like flying.

she came to live with us for many years. she would wake up at 4:30 in the morning and go to bed at 8:00. she spent her time knitting or crocheting, i could never remember the difference. or she would sit at her sewing machine for hours. when "jams" were all the rage, she made me a pair that didn't fit too well.

she would look at you and crinkle her face to where her eyes would scrunch into her nose and her lips would pucker into this wonderful smirky smile. she liked to pinch me.

gram went home a few years ago. she nearly finished her book before leaving; the one about the angels. she didn't make it to 100, but she got really close.

amongst the envelopes of negatives and prints in the package i opened two nights ago, there were three pictures of gram, taken only a couple of months before she left. the one of me, rachel and gram sat on top in the first envelope i opened. i looked at her smiling back at me and felt this rush as gravity lost it's grip for one second and i thought, "weeee!"