When I think about Nannie, I think about homemade candies at Christmas and walking to Baskin Robbins in Royal Oak for peach ice cream. I think about pearl earrings and flowered robes. I think about the times she and I rode to Johnnie Mercer's pier and went walking, just the two of us, in the summer evenings we shared in Wilmington. At times in my life she was my closest confidante and my safest place. My life is more because she was in it. I hope she is looking down right now, eating Oreos with butter, and knows that I love her with a purple passion. What a blessing to be able to call her my Nannie.