A granddaughter, reflected.

I just finished this small painting of my maternal grandmother. I popped it up on the dining room door as it's drying to feel her loving gaze again. If any friend or family member were asked something about Nora, I can vouch absolutely that this image, mine captured in oils, would be their immediate visual memory. In her chair, always in a sweater, her long thin gray hair bunched in a quick bun at the nape of her neck. it was somehow haphazardly held with only one or two long thin inverted 'u" shaped hairpins. She was a storybook grandmother, she read them to me and she was one herself for all my friends. We were thick as thieves, I hung on her every word and saw the world with wonder through her eyes. She's been gone 21 years this summer, but I am so much 'her' and she is always with me. I helped her in the end and when I look at my own fingernails now, I see her softly rounded nails, and I always smile.