Grandma, or nonna in Italian
Is gone now,
Not dead by any means
Heck that woman is invincible
I will probably go before she,
Anyway, now that she is gone I miss her dearly
But I know that I can be reunited with her whenever my heart desires,
Once again not physically,
But emotionally,
All I have to do is stroll down the hallway and peer into my sisters room
Against the wall on the right, she has her dresser,
And smack dab in the middle of her dresser is a perfume bottle
Not just any perfume bottle, my grandmas perfume bottle,
The one that never gets touched or used unless my nonna is in town,
The one with the pearl like color on the top half and a chestnut brown on the bottom,
The bottle that is shaped like a massive egg,
The one that has that old fashioned ball at the end of it that you squeeze,
O and squeeze she does…
She has an infatuation with that perfume and she wants the world to know it.

Ahh yes and that smell, that distinct odor that is emitted from that age old bottle,
The smell isn’t bad by any means, it is a sweet sort of old lady smell,
The problem is that it hits you like a ton of bricks,
And has the tendency to linger in a room for days on end,
With that, even if we were deaf and blind we would know if nonna was visiting,
The smell that comes with her is unmistakable,
Although the odor is not adored, the meaning it connotes is immense,
It means I will be devouring home made biscotti for weeks on end,
It means I will be receiving hugs and kisses like they are going out of style,
It means I will be rudely awakened on a Saturday morning, by an intense card game,
It means the televisions will be constantly on Italian Soap Operas,
It means that I will be bombarded with boat loads of redundant advice,
It means there will be at least 3 gigantic Italian Family Gatherings in the span of a week.
It means Italian will once again become my first language
Above all it means I will be spending some much needed time with a loved one,
And for that I hold that dumb old bottle in high regard