Remembering Grandma

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My father's mother, my Grandma (not to be confused with Nana, my maternal grandmother), was born in Hungary in 1907, living there until she emigrated to the US in the late 1920's. (There is a great deal more to that part of the story, but that is not a story for today. Today I prefer happier memories.)
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She worked most of her life as a seamstress, eventually even designing evening gowns for a famous pianist's partner to wear to his concerts. Grandma was very much a European - elegant and well-put together, with a clear sense of style (which sadly seems to have skipped my generation). Even when she lay sick in the hospital she made sure to have a nurse paint her nails in the bright red shade she favored.
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When I was growing up I always wanted to be taken to my grandparents' home when I was home sick from school because Grandma would make me grilled cheese sandwiches cut into triangles with the crusts removed, so much fancier than the simple rectangles I received at my own house. She had art books, and design magazines, and fancy needlepoints of sad-looking pierrots, and a button box for her grandchildren to play with that would be the envy of every child for miles around.
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She had a very formal living room which contained the world's most unbelievably over the top gilded coffee table - which she hated. She'd been talked into buying it by her wealthier and even more elegant sister-in-law and had hated it since the day it was brought home, but it would have offended her sister-in-law terribly to have gotten rid of it, so there it stayed. It was partially redeemed though by the four-compartment candy dish which she kept on the table - fully-stocked with everything from chocolates to peppermints.
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In my jewelry box, right next to a gold ring with her name on it which came with her from Hungary, is a small golden box which contains my most tactile memory of my grandmother. The box contains Fiamma, a solid perfume from Princess Marcella Borghese. When I open the box I inhale my grandmother's very essence, a scent that transports me back thirty years in time. This perfume hasn't been manufactured in decades, it can't even be found by google, but somehow this little tiny box has kept its scent strong all these years, giving me one last sensory link to a woman I loved dearly and lost much too early.
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My grandmother's perfume, what more perfect sentimental object could I have chosen to show you today...

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