Growing up in New York, I loved watching my grandmother Estee put on her make-up - I always admired her sense of style.
My grandmother had a lilac bush at her home in Long Island. I always associate the scent of it with her and try to have lilacs in my home.
Estee Lauder was my grandmother. She was an iconic and powerful woman, but to us, she was just Estee. She was the first person to teach me how important it is to be passionate and proud of what you do, and always talked about 'balance.'
Please remember that my great grandmother was a slave. My grandmother was a sharecropper. My mother was a factory worker.
Why don't we focus on what Afghan women can do? They can cook, bear children and pray. As I recall, that was fine for our grandmothers.
My dad was in the army. World War II. He got his college education from the army. After World War II he became an insurance salesman. Really, I didn't know my dad very well. He and my mother split up after the war. I was raised by my maternal grandmother and grandfather, and by my mother.
My grandmother always came to my shows. She was always concerned about the way I dressed - even later on, when I was well known and I supported her.
My grandmother did all the cooking at Christmas. We ate fattened chicken. We would feed it even more so it would be big and fat.
My grandmother flew only once in her life, and that was the day she and her new husband ascended into the skies of Victorian London in the wicker basket of a hot-air balloon. They were soon to emigrate to Canada, and the aerial ride was meant to be a last view of their beloved England.
I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books to be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren's hands.
