While Elizabeth sits down on her bright red couch to watch Jeopardy, she giggles a bit as I conduct several questions to ask her. My grandma sits with a flannel blanket covering her legs, curly black hair sticking straight up, and wrinkly hands holding the television remote. Over the years she has developed a love for the bingo, and when she is not dabbing fluorescent colors onto a board, she enjoys relaxing with my siblings and I watching game shows. Although it has become more difficult for my grandmother to participate in everyday activities, at eighty-nine, this moment with my Grandmother means the world to her, and more. Betty knows the questions I ask will pertain to my Grandfather, Peter and the story the two of them have together. I could tell she was excited to recollect old memories for me, perhaps the most beautiful ones. “Oh boy, here we go Em”, were the words she said as we were about to turn back the clock and jump into the world of Elizabeth and Peter.

“Let’s see”, she said while sipping a rose coffee mug that said “World’s Best Grandma”, “I didn’t meet Pete until I was maybe seventeen. He was seven years older than me and quite handsome”. Elizabeth received an education at Roosevelt High School and graduated in 1945, still remembering how happy she felt she knowing the rest of her life was up in the air. She then continued on with her magnificent stories about how excited she was about life and how happy she was that she met my grandfather. It is unique because Elizabeth did not grow up during this time period; she evolved and thrived in the forties and fifties.

As the minutes go by I watched my Grandma relive old experiences she once had, regretting nothing she said. She looked up at me and began telling me everything I wanted and needed to know about my Grandfather and her. She sat back on the couch and told me how they met on a hot summer day at Chapman Lake. “It was a very new and thrilling experience for me. Time was different. We didn’t have cell phones or gadgets to talk all the time.” Being that my grandpa passed away, she still can remember him retelling old trips that they took together, whether it was to Atlantic City or even sitting outside on the tire swing my Grandma still has. Then, I asked my Grandma what the best part of him was. “Stubborn” she says as she grinned through her crooked dentures. “He was always so so stubborn. Until I broke through and made him laugh like a hyena.” I could tell this really sparked something in her that brought back some of the best moments of her life. “Oh dear”, she says, “He used to take me dancing up with Fran and her husband up there.” I laughed and wonder where “up there” meant.

Then it was time for me to question about a different aspect of her relationship, a darker aspect. I knew she did not like talking about this much, I was nervous and so was she. However, this was something I was very intrigued about. She took another sip of her tea, took the blanket off and kicked her feet off. Becoming night time, I could see she already had her pink pajama set on. “Ugh”, she sighs out loud, “World War Two”. The first thing she could tell me was that he did not speak about it. “He didn’t wanna remember it”, she repeatedly said. As we sat there together, I too, thought in my mind why anyone would remember such a terrible experience too. “But yanno time passed and he eventually felt better about his time overseas.” “Everything was different though, people weren’t overthinking things as they do now, so we just moved in together and fell in love I guess.”
We discussed the past times and she told me about the time my grandfather proposed to  her one night while they were visiting Times Square. “Uhh”, “he made me laugh all the time. That was another thing that fascinated me much about Elizabeth. “But I really do miss him”, she said in a low hushed tone, “every day in fact.” When night time approached my grandmother summed up her experience with only positive things to say about her youth, time spent with Peter, and how she wishes she could go back. “I don’t regret stuff though, life happens and then it ends. I’m just happy we got all that time together.”

When I was finished interviewing my Grandmother it only deepened the thought of her being my favorite person to exist. The time was well spent finding out beautiful experiences she and my Grandfather had together. Right before I left her small grey house on the corner, she turned back to me to say “Hold them while you can. Time goes by quick.” This was something that would permanently remain in my head and only bring good thoughts about Elizabeth.