It Happened To Me: When My Grandmother Died, I Raided Her Beauty Products...

... and now I look better than ever!

Naked, I stand on the tiles of Esther’s bathroom floor, reaching over the tub for the silver grab bar. I put one foot in, then the other, and a pink stain spreads from my toes to my ankles, stopping right at the water line.

Gripping the bar, I squat until my butt burns, then slide back, lowering my thighs, my knees, and my calves into the water. I straighten my spine until I arrive at 90 degrees. Back home, I make puddles on the floor from plunking into the tub. But, here, the bar affords a Joseph Pilates-worthy sequence of strength, precision, and grace.

I admire the sheen on the water’s surface: Avon’s Skin-So-Soft bath oil. I grab Esther’s copy of “Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud” from the toilet seat. As I bathe and read, I hear nothing but the slight movement of water and the turning of pages. No blaring TV turned to Turner Classic Movies. No creaky footsteps on the wooden floors. No Baltimore accent shouting into the landline. I’ve visited here for more than 40 years, but never alone.

After a few chapters, my phone alarm beeps. I emerge from the tub and wrap the picnic blanket-sized towel around myself. In the mirror, I see tiny streaks of mascara below my eyes, but otherwise, I appear more content, relaxed, and cheerful than I have in a very long time. And, now I must prepare to view Esther, at the funeral parlor, for the very last time.

Esther shows off her shoulders and holds my lunch box. Charleston, South Carolina, 1986.

Esther taught me the art of the hot bath at a young age. At her house, I used as much Mr. Bubble as I wanted. Mr. Bubble’s friendly eyes, manically waving arms, and big wide smile beckoned my little girl self, calling: “Pour me. Pour me. More. More.” Mountains of pure white bubbles floated up in the air and over the edge of the tub.

“Wow, hon, you’re really enjoying that bath,” Esther would say, “and I have more of that Mr. Bubble down in the cellar.”

When Esther died, in October 2024, my mother phoned me at dawn:

“Grandmom spent less than 24 hours at Pickersgill.”

I had visited Esther’s sister, Chuchie, in the dementia ward at Pickersgill years ago. Things looked nice enough, but the place reeked of farts and Lysol.

“Then she came down with a fever, went to the emergency room, and passed away at 1 a.m.”

Esther was 98 and lived at home until her last three weeks. She fell, broke her hip, and went to rehabilitation before her brief Pickersgill moment. She’d rather die than live at Pickersgill; I’d known that for years.

The afternoon after she died, my mother and my aunt began sorting through Esther’s things with the type of manic energy that comes from needing to keep busy to avoid feeling anything. Both texted me within minutes of each other to ask what I wanted.

“Just don’t touch the bathroom,” I texted back.

Esther’s Senior Prom, 1942. She skipped two grades in high school and graduated early at 16.