When I was growing up, my grandmother meant the world to me. I can't recall a weekend from the age of nine until well into high school that I wasn't at her house. When it was time to go back to school shopping, my Grandmother was always the one that took me to buy what I needed, and most of what I wanted. When I was eight years old she taught me how to cook scrambled eggs, and I recall that for many years after that, eggs were my favorite food. I suppose I figured that since I could now cook eggs on my own, even if they ended up with shells in them, that eggs must be the most awesome food ever to be consumed. Even now as a mother myself, my seven year old loves to cook eggs. When she cooks them, I stand by watching her and I always seem to think of the days from long ago when my Grandmother stood watching me cook when I was a child. My grandmother was a strong woman. She worked hard her entire life. She raised three children as a single mother when her husband died in the 1950's. Back then, it wasn't common for a woman to raise a family and provide for the household on her own. My grandmother did though because she was an amazing woman. As a single mother myself now, I feel that I gained much of my own strength from my grandmother.

In my pre-teen and teen years, my grandmother and I baked homemade cinnamon rolls together from scratch every Saturday morning. We shared our Saturdays this way for many years and the cinnamon rolls were, without a doubt, the most delicious cinnamon rolls in the world. Even now, more than 30 years later, there isn't much I wouldn't do to just be able to spend one more Saturday rolling and kneading dough with her. Truly, it wasn't really that the cinnamon rolls themselves were really special, or that the ingredients she used made them taste better than others. As a matter of fact, they were simple to make and used the most basic of ingredients. The thing that made my Grandmother's cinnamon rolls the best in the world was the conversation that came along with making them. I remember her talking to me, laughing with me and sharing her love with me as we rolled the dough and added the cinnamon and sugary spices. The laughter and the love that we shared all those years ago, now long gone, and never again to be had.