Emily Bett Rickards Instagram – Growing up our relatives were always on the other end of a plane ride. My parents, brother and I were west coasters but my memories of summer are all east coast. Thick air, mosquitos the size of quarters, bagged milk… My cousins backyard where the meals were dominated by corn on the cob and whatever nuclear colour of powdered mixed drink was popular that year. The next (and every) morning Dad would convince me run with him to the house he grew up in just so we could cannonball in the ancient pool. I miss this the most. Not the relief from humidity or the smell of fabric softener but I miss something I don’t think I ever saw: my Grandmother seeing her favourite boy barrel through the front door, out the back one and into the water. Grandma stayed a Polish mystery to me. A stout woman with a yellow car that spoke German when you turned it on, a sun room full of Eastern European dolls and a patio frequently visited by the animals in the area waiting to feed on peanuts out of her pockets. She was known for her stern nature, for illegally slipping me cash, and her killer apple pie. She was hard to get to know but I loved her. I spent eras in her house but Grandma only made it out west once to visit me. I remember her in our kitchen scolding me for playing with a raw egg. I remember her telling me she hated flying and I remember feeling brave next to her when she got scared stiff by the thunderstorm that struck our house one night. As a child, I felt so “other” to her. Strangers if not for family. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t fly to see me more? Why with what few planes she did take she did so to visit Hawaii? Walking the beaches as an adult myself I think that her need for a different form of peace was stronger than her fear of flying. In my early teens she fell sick. Right before she passed she finally let us hear the stories from the war that lived deep in her blood. I understood her then. We spread her ashes here so she could rest forever. I have her stubbornness, her hands and her weird pinky toe that I take everywhere with me, especially when I am fortunate enough to be a guest on the sands of Hawaii. Mahalo.