You think of grandma, and you might think: raspberry jellied cookies, chicken soup stocked with more flat egg noodles than meat, a soft hug that reminds you of a butterfly. I think, grandma, and I’m reminded of borscht so thick you eat it with a fork. Reminded of the sickness I felt as she ground slimy slabs of meat and onion into the most delicious chopped liver. Reminded of her Folgers can sitting on her stovetop, half filled with schmaltz, the main ingredient for most of her recipes. 

You think, grandma, maybe you see her silhouetted in a rocking chair, darning socks or mending hems or painting a thin line with dark nail polish on her hose-less legs. Drawing that line from her heel to the tender spot at the back of her knee. You want to remind her, This is 1976. But you’re too stunned and fascinated to interrupt her ways. I think, grandma, and I remember my first visit after enlisting in the Air Force. Remember her handing me a disposable Daisy razor. Remember her saying, Shave that peacoat, as she pointed to my Air Force overcoat and I thought, She’s lost it, and, Not surprising after all she’s endured.  

• Her mother left her—not quite a year old—along with her three siblings on the doorstep of a Jewish orphanage.
• As soon as she aged-out of that orphanage, Sally, the oldest, took on guardianship and finished raising everyone.
• She—my grandma—determined to maintain “family,” gathered her children, loaded them onto the train for their visits to her mother, their grandmother.  My uncle once told me how the howls and screams through the halls of that institution still haunted him. 
• At some point, some thugs took a hit out on George, grandma’s husband. I heard it involved debt. Heard it involved gambling. I think there was a war as well, which is safe to say, because isn’t there always a war?
• I should mention, She’s Jewish. 

You think grandma and you probably recall pink lipstick over-outlining lips, rouge too dark and too circled and too high, and hair ratted into perfect beehives. I think, grandma, and I see her in unexpected places, like that moment on the train. The woman across from me with her fake-furred collar and her coat button to her collarbones, crinkled her eyes when she smiled at me. Those eyes told one story. While, the trace of Loreal #5 Red stained and revealed a different story. I saw her as grandma. I know her as myself.

I think, grandma, and I think of her frustration after I decluttered her pantries. When I tell you, Declutter, I mean tossing cans of beans with expiration dates almost three years old. I mean family-sized shampoos and conditioners lined in rows, dust so thick, I wiped them to read the labels. I asked, You know you live alone, right? She laughed and shrugged and say, I don’t want to run out. Later, long after she passes, I find myself in Section 8 Housing with my three sons—my youngest just over a year—and I food-bank shopped each week. I snagged extra shampoo and soap and, after a year, my shelves resembled grandma’s. I thought, Are we ever that different? One from another?

I think, grandma, and I remember the way she sent me home-baked chocolate chip cookies packed with popcorn, To keep them soft. How she included tiny hand-beaded pins and bracelets in all those care packages. She shipped those boxes to England. To Spain. To Turkey. She followed my whereabouts and later, I told her, I devoured all the cookies and I ate the popcorn too, and Nothing ever tasted so good.

I think, grandma as I long for our brief encounters, like holding hands as we flashlight searched, brushing corners with a feather through her tiny home in Gary, Indiana. We swept until we found every last breadcrumb and, even later, I learned from my uncle, how she mapped and plotted and hid those crumbs herself. 

Evans writes the difficult, the guidebooks for survivors and offers creative workshops on the art of healing. Her work has appeared in Narratively, The Rumpus, Brevity, and more. She’s earned two MFAs, one in creative nonfiction, the other in poetry and has authored two books: Safe Handling and Tangled by Blood and has flash essay collection forthcoming in 2026.