Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the perfumes of spring.
Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory of you.
Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls.
- Pablo Neruda

She had her own special perfume...I could never pinpoint it....it had a hint of 'paan' (beetle leaf) that I remember. And I remember that she had very very soft arms that were always open with a hug for me. Never telling me to stop running around, chiding my talking to much/too loud/not eating enough, never asking if I was doing well in school, never asking for anything for the way she loved me. She had eight children of her own as well as half a dozen grandchildren. And oddly enough I don't think she even told me a bedtime story ever or try to feed me by telling me one. But she always made me feel like I was special and worthy of being loved while she listened to my prattlings from the time I was 4 till I was 18 years old, which is when I last saw her. To her, I wasn't the skinny,black,loud,troublesome girl that I was to everyone else of my family. And she wasn't even my 'real' grandma. She was my mother's step-aunt. In her last letter, sent three years ago Today, she had only talked about how much she loves me and wants me to come see her next time my parents visit.
And then 2 months later she was gone. And I never got to reply to that letter. Or visit her. I could cry everyday, beg, plead or make as many bargain as possible and I'll still never see her or get a hug from her. She was not the first to die nor the last....but she was the best a human being can ever achieve to be. Almost three years. And I still choke up.