mint-green basketball hoop

Usually I try to think of a title for a post before I write it. I can do this because I usually plan out in my brain all the things I'll say to you way before I write it.

I didn't do that today and I'm having a hard time naming this post, because I have the feeling but not the words yet. I think the words go like this:

I'm afraid to talk about my Great-grandmother on my blog. We called her Babalou.

The reason I'm afraid to talk about her is that I want to say things about her that I think I remember, but her daughter and grand-daughters and windowed husband could all read this blog and say, "No, Becky, she didn't do that. Your imagination invented it."

And I like the way that I remember her, even if it isn't quite how it really was.

Babalou died when I ten from breast cancer. So the things I remember are probably skewed.

But I think she talked a little like Julia Child. Sort of deep and throaty.

and she wore strong Chanel perfume and whenever I smell it somewhere else I feel like crying, but not because I miss her, even though I do. But I feel a little like crying because I miss her house.

The house that we only came in to through the back door, because the backdoor led to the family room where the tv was and Grandpa was. There was a ledge into the kitchen where Babalou'd put out little cookies that she'd decorated with candy.

The front door had a bell on it.

It led into a room with white carpet and furniture and little shelves of fragile things we couldn't touch. The whole house smelled like her and when she died and Grandpa moved that was what broke my heart.

It broke my heart that he was leaving that house with the upstairs room that felt like my room. That was the only grandparent's house where I wanted to go and play, instead of sit in front of the tv, because no offense Grandmas who read my blog, but Grandma houses are boring for little kids.

But they had a wooden mint green basketball hoop in the driveway, and neighbor kids across the street and next door, and hopscotch lines pressed into the cement , and a giant garden in the back yard.

And when I say a giant garden, I mean GIANT. In my child-mind I imagined it to be an acre stretching from the back wall of the house down a hill to a path which eventually led to ponds and good climbing trees. The acre between the house and path was filled with boxes and planters and flowers and berries and everything good. There was even a tree full of a raccoon family and every night after dinner the Momma raccoon would come down to the back door, the family door, and wash their paws in a little bowl of water that Babalou set out. Then, carefully, and with perfect table manners, the raccoon would eat the leftovers from our dinner.

If somehow Babalou forgot to put out their food or there wasn't enough to share, the big Momma raccoon would stand up and rap on glass door with her tiny fist until someone brought them dinner.

Anyway, I've been thinking about the house today because of something my Grandpa (her widower) said on his blog, which is something you should read, because it will make you cry.