what do peaches and skip-bo have to do with anything?

I was nine years old when the Berlin wall fell.  I was at my Aunt Karen's house in midleville in the living room.  it was a huge, old house with like 12 foot ceilings and a huge flight of stairs up to my cousins room with the coolest ever attic access.  i was lying on the floor coloring when i found out the Berlin wall came down. 

I remember this because my grandma Jenkins said to me "Kati remember where you are right now because your kids will ask you where you were when the Berlin wall came down".

I am not so sure they will ask me that.  they might ask me where i was when i found out about 9/11.  the will ask me, just like i have asked my mom, "what was your grandma like." so before i forget.

I was a work when i found out my grandma had died.  my first day back from having Gideon. 

I remember her house in Door and the ice cream shop near by that had HUGE "small" ice cream cones and we would go there to get twists sometimes.  i remember she use to make us powdered milk and pina colada flavored drinks (non alcoholic of course!) in those colorful aluminium cups that made your teeth hurt.  i remember eating cucumbers from her garden. 

i remember she had a sign on her wall that said "the will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you".  and how Beth (Liz) and i would always stay at here house together and sometimes we would get to sleep in her bed and she slept back in the same room with grandpa.  before he died.  i was seven when he went home.  i remember the room in the basement we would sleep in with the really uncomfortable bed. 

i remember when grandpa died and she moved into grandville into her new apartment on the second floor.  sitting there at the kitchen table playing skip-bo and eating canned peaches.  grandma was never really not a great cook...we still loved her.  i remember how Liz would stick jelly beans up her nose at grandmas house and we would have to stifle giggles when she would come out with out her teeth. 

do not say the word F-A-R-T.  its a bad word.  she came to my orchestra concerts and she loved it when i sang in church.  she always gave me ten dollars in an envelope at Christmas.  she made the quilt that i still sleep with every night.  the quilt that went with me to summer camp, to college, and is tattered and falling apart now crumpled up on my bed.  its my grown up blankie.  Liz and I used to try to figure out which was the ugliest fabric. i always wondered, did she just find that print at the fabric store or had she worn it to church some long ago Sunday?

she gave me my first real job. 

she held my son before she died.