Dear Grandma, you were the only person who ever called me Johnnie, so I’m sending you a letter with that name. I can’t imagine what you might have made of the Internet, but it seems likelier to reach you through the air than on paper. I talk to you often, but this week seems a bigger deal.  As always I am grateful to you for the love and devotion you showed me. You kept love alive for me. When I was sick, you made me well. When I ran away from home, it was always to your loving, soothing arms and warm house and steaming kitchen. You always had a bowl of penny candy and shiny pennies hidden away for me in your dresser and you always winked at me and whispered for me in Yiddish to go fill my pockets.

Looking back, I see now how shy you were. How you never smiled and always covered your mouth with your hand to cover your bad teeth, which you could  never afford to get fixed. How you hid in America for most of your life, but never quite lived here.

I remember how you took me to the movies every Saturday, our long walk hand-in-hand across Providence to the big old theater and how you laughed and howled at Jerry Lewis, even though you didn’t understand a word of English. And I can still hear the crinkle of you loudly unwrapping some Tootsie rolls for me. You took me to the first movies I saw, the only ones. Thank you for loving a child in a scary and loveless life. You were my light.

BIg news. My wife Maria and I are buying a house together tomorrow. How can I explain this farmhouse to you, a Russian immigrant whose family was murdered in front of you, whose brother was killed by wolves on the Russian steppes, a woman who lived in a three room apartment for 60 years, walked across the street to your little food store every day, never took a vacation or drove a car? I could never convince you not to throw your body in front of me every time you saw a police car, even when I was 40. You would never believe they weren’t coming for me.  Take me, you would whisper to them, take me.

I never heard you complain, speak harshly or your life, pity yourself, even though I would sometimes see you looking at crumpled old photographs, collapsing into tears if you thought I wasn’t looking. I was.

Yet how much fun we had. How much laughter. Our secrets, our jokes.  Good times, every time. I will always remember your watching your little black and white television, cursing at Richard Nixon in Yiddish even though you never quite knew who he was. You just didn’t like his face. I remember bringing you rocks and flowers when I would run away to your house, and you always were wide-eyed, as if I were bringing you the Crown Jewels.

You spoke so little English we didn’t talk much. But that just made our time together all the sweeter, because we communicated in feelings and emotions, much the way some animals do.  But you sure communicated unqualified love. I sure got that from you. It saved my life, the idea that I could be loved.

I have chosen to go for love, a life of the heart. I Iive on a farm that is larger than the boundaries of your old neighborhood. I am not religious in the sense you know, sorry. I have borrowed money to pay for some things, something I know you never did. And I did not take your advice about marriage this time. I married a gentile – let’s get that over with. I know you think Christians don’t cook well or take good care of their husbands, but that is somewhat of a myth, although the cooking part may be true. You would love Maria. She would touch the artist in you, you always managed to find some beautiful things for your tiny apartment, and you would approve of the way we love each other. People asked me all the time about my love for Maria.  I know I learned it from you. I saw that love could be pure and selfless. And true.

And you taught me that love dwarfed everything else in life, the worst losses and tragedies, the hardest and loneliest days.

How I wish you could see your Johnnie now. A writer and all. Taking photos. You always loved your photos. The farm would unravel you, all this land, space, bugs, woods.  How horrified you would be at the cost of all of these animals running around, sheep in the pasture, these dogs in the house, chickens in the back yard. Like the old country, you would say, spitting over your shoulder.  I hesitate to even tell you we are adopting a blind old pony. Yes, and feeding him every day. I remember your haggling with the butcher Silverman for hours to get enough meat to last you the week. And to always have cakes and pies for me. But you would get past all of that. You would cluck and scold me, and roll your eyes, and spit and hiss, and squeeze the breath of out of and give me one of your nuclear wet kisses on the cheek.

You would love our new kitchen, it looks just like yours, right down to the white cabinets.  The other day, I stood in the new kitchen and cried a bit thinking of you, missing you, wishing Maria could have known you. Out of our pain and suffering,  your terrors and flight, your grindingly hard and poor life, you always showed me, taught me, what life was really about. You never forgot how to laugh, or how to love.

And bless you dear thing, I will never forget it either.