So my grandma is 93 today. Birthdays and visits are complicated with her now and she's not the same woman I've known for so long. Her memory started falling apart a few years back, and now she repeats the same questions many times during a conversation. I feel fortunate that she recognizes me whenever I see her, and that she remembers my kids, but I miss my grandma. We never really get past the initial parts of a conversation because she needs to keep resetting it.

My grandma has always been important to me. As a child I went to her house for Christmas every year, and to this day it doesn't feel like the holiday season without her cookies and treats. I used to love to lay underneath the white flocked Christmas tree with only blue ornaments, and hope one day I could have that same magical tree.

Grandma's house was always welcoming and clean. Whenever there was a plate of brownies or cookies on the counter and I asked if I could have one she always said, "That's what they're there for!" I don't remember her ever seeming disappointed in me or mad. She loved me in a way I look forward to loving my own grandchildren one day.

I got to know her best after I was in college. I moved from St. Paul to Beloit after a broken off engagement. She was living alone after a lifetime of sharing a house, and I was just venturing out in the world on my own. We were able to help each other out and connect in a way that wouldn't have been the same at any other time in our lives. I could set digital clocks and change hard to reach light bulbs, she taught me how to do laundry, and nearly every Sunday for more than five years after that I went to her house for dinner. She always let me bring a friend along if I thought someone was in need of a home cooked meal.

It breaks my heart that my children won't get to know my grandma the way I did. To me it was an entire childhood of cousins, Christmases and Easter baskets, playing in the basement and endless card games in the porch. I can still conjure instantly the smell of freshly ironed sheets, the basement during a summer day, or the way the breeze felt on the screened in porch out back. It was the house my mom grew up in, and I still can't believe it's a house I will never visit again.

It is now my responsibility to remember the moments she no longer can.

Happy Birthday, Nonnie Rose.

I love you.