I wrote this for my amazing grandmother on her 90th birthday, and now I will share it with you.
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I started writing this at least five times, trying to choose the right memory. There are so many; the warm summertime kind, when you and me and Gaga and Andy would sit on the patio chairs and chat, or you would cover the ground with Barbasol and let us skate around outside; the quiet, private kind, when you would hold me on your lap on the swiveling blue and white chairs in the living room and nurse my wounds, real or imaginary, on my knees or in my heart; the funny kind, when you would lay between me and Andy and tell us stories that got progressively stranger and sillier as you fell asleep, still talking, or the way you'd rub my legs to wind me down for bedtime and I'd kick you when you stopped too soon. I could choose any of these or a million others, but the light I'd shine on my memories of you would illuminate too small a fraction.
Houses are just buildings that can be bought and sold - the heart of a family is the people in it, not where they put their things. Even so, my strongest and most comforting memories of childhood happened in your house, and no amount of "home is where the heart is" can make me feel less love for the house we grew up in. My memories of the houses I lived in then are hazy, but I perfectly remember the way the kitchen carpet felt on my feet, the way Gaga's alarm clock lit numbers on the ceiling, the smell of the sun porch in the winter. When I think of my childhood, I realize it's inextricably linked to that house. All of the moments there made me who I am - the shaving cream on the ground and the bedtime stories, but also the forgettable, everyday moments - the moments of just existing in a house full of such incredible love. Every moment I have with you, my best friend, is a memory worth telling.