Other than being women I love, my grandma and my mom didn’t have a lot in common. “Mode” for my mother meant fashion, but for Grandma Elsie it would have been a scoop of ice cream on top. Perhaps because of this, my mother was long and lean, and my grandma short and rounded. They differed in the shoes they liked, the food they ate, all the way down to the dishrags they used, (which my mother often mentioned as she stood doing dishes at the farm sink while the others finished their dinner.) 

It was years before I could reach into any sink, and years after that that I understood the love of a dishrag. How could it be important, I wondered. I know now, here in France. My friend Sue makes them. They feel wonderful in my hands. And when I reach for them, to clean the pan, still peppered from my new French dish learned, I smile and enjoy the task. Truly. Not only because they work so well. Nor because I have such a friend. But because I have found my dishrag. Different from my grandma. Not the same as my mother. All still lovable. And I am home.