My Grandmother

Today is my grandmother's birthday. My grandmother is an extremely loving lady. One day a few years ago, I was walking around in my home in the US. It was just another ordinary day. Maybe I was talking with my kids and suddenly this memory suffused my brain. I remembered visiting my mother's native place and my grandmother applying oil in my hair. My grandmother is a very busy and active person. She is always doing some chore or another. One day when the chores were over she pulled me gently to her, told me to sit down and started applying lots of coconut oil in my hair. Oil started to drench my hair and oil trickled onto to my forehead. Everytime I went to my mother's native place she would apply lots of coconut oil in my hair and braid my hair. For some reason, I remembered this ritual so many years later while living in the US. I also remembered a really beautiful and unique hoop earring my grandmother gave my mother. It has a flower design at the clasp and is thick and broad in the middle and tapers slightly towards the edges. It is not like a perfectly circular tube kind of hoop. From the bottom small beads hang in clusters. I just love that hoop so much. My grandmother wears a huge gold hoop on her upper earlobe which is how women of her generation in my community dress. My grandmother looks very beautiful on special occassions because she wears the traditional chatta and mundu and she wears a most delicate pothamundu . My mother and my mother's sisters discuss details of that fabric when they meet. I love my grandmother very much. She gave me so much love. Today I am going to pray a lot.