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y grandmother was a short woman, barely surpassing five feet with short, curly strawberry blonde hair that she often described as a nest of daddy longlegs when it was in particular disarray. I was always a little wary of hugging her when I was young, I am deathly afraid of spiders.

Her body was agile and lean from years of plowing, planting and picking the large garden that she kept in her backyard. During the summer, I would spend every day of my vacation helping her tend the garden. She never trusted the produce at the large supermarkets. What she couldn't grow, she would buy from the Amish in the town nearby.

“The Amish are a big bunch of hypocrites is what they are,” she would say every time upon entering the small Amish community. “They don't believe in electricity, but they have no problem asking you for a ride in your car. Who could blame them though? I wouldn't want to stare at a horse's ass all day, it's bad enough I have to live with your grandfather.”

A smart Amish person would have refused a ride from my grandmother. She always drove at least 15 miles over the speed limit and wove in and out of lanes without checking her blind spot or using her turn signal. She refused to use her brakes unless absolutely necessary and on one day in particular, a short husky kid had the misfortune of crossing the street too slowly for her taste as she barreled down the pavement. She rolled down her window, stuck her head out and screamed, “Move along fatty before I knock the chub right off you!” She threw her head back and let out a guttural chuckle as she pressed on the gas pedal. “Look at his little sausage legs trying to run.” She reasoned that her near collision with the boy was good for him; he got some much-needed exercise. I turned and glared at her completely mortified. She shrugged and said, “Oh shit, Conor that was fun.” I imagine the boy thought differently.

After my grandfather died, my brother and his wife convinced Grandma to move into the downstairs of their home. I came home from college every Sunday to spend the day with her and listen to her complain about my brother's wife. “Now Conor,” she would say leaning back in her recliner, “you know I love that girl up there, but it sounds like a herd of elephants stampeding every time she walks across the room. Now my bed is right underneath that refrigerator and one day she's going to fall through the floor and smother me in my sleep.”

She got up from her chair and motioned for me to follow her into her bedroom. She pointed to the spot in the ceiling that she anticipated my sister-in-law to plummet through. She then turned to examine other possible weak spots in the ceiling when she caught a glimpse of herself in her dresser mirror.

“Now would you just look at my hair? It looks like a nest of daddy longlegs.”