When I was a child, I adored both of my grandmothers. Grandma Georgie lived nearby. I saw her frequently and she was as doting as a grandmother could be. As I grew older, I recognized a strong, compassionate, kind and brilliant woman. She was everything I wanted to be, and everything I still strive to be. The checker at her preferred grocery store came to her funeral, despite the fact that they had no other relationship. Everybody loved her.
She was also direct and able to communicate. She disdained passive-aggressiveness and manipulation above all else. Her death when I was 15 was one of the most traumatic events of my childhood.
Grandma Mary lived in Chicago. I rarely saw her, but talked to her on the phone once a week. She sent me Juicy Fruit gum and five dollar checks in the mail.
As I got older, I became privy to the fact that she was always on speaking terms with either my dad or his sister, but never both. She would go years without speaking to whomever was on her naughty list. The only communication during those times would be nasty letters.
The last time she stopped speaking to my dad, and therefore me, was about four and a half years ago, when I told her I was pregnant with Simone. Our last conversation went as follows:
"You're going to be a great-grandmother!"
"What? Who?"
"Me."
"You're having a fatherless child?"
"No..."
"Are you married?"
"No."
"It's fatherless."
Long pause...
"I was married once, you know," she informed me.
"Oh, yes, grandma, I know."
"He was a jerk."
"Oh, so being married isn't so great."
I'd stumped her.
Over the next three years, my parents received several cruel pieces of mail. I believe that she said unflattering things about me in them, but my parents didn't share it. During this time I would occasionally send her a card, although I never included a return address. I felt it was better not to be on the receiving end of her hate mail, and this allowed me to have nothing but compassion for her. She was lonely, bitter and miserable. Moreover, I knew that she didn't really disapprove of me. She wasn't religious and didn't like marriage. She only lashed out because she felt left out and abandoned.
I often thought that I should visit her. I hadn't seen her since I was nine years old. Once I mentioned to my dad that I was considering taking Simone to meet her. Her grew concerned and told me something he'd never told me before.
It seems that when I was between one and two, she came from Chicago to visit my dad and meet me. One day, she was upstairs playing with me and my parents were downstairs. My dad her her yell "Bobby!"(his name). A minute later, I came tumbling down the stairs. When she got home, she took all the pictures of me that my parents had sent her and sent them back to them, addressing them to my mother and using her maiden name. My dad has always believed that his mother may have pushed me down the stairs.
Whether or not she did, it doesn't bother me. It certainly wasn't personal. What strikes me about the story is the fact that it would even occur to my dad that his own mother would push me down the stairs. If one of my children fell down the stairs on my parents or in-laws watch, I might be angry. But the idea that it may have been on purpose wouldn't even cross my mind.
When she was diagnosed with breast cancer about a year ago, she refused treatment. My father, brother and I decided to visit her, taking Simone with us. My aunt suggested that we surprise her so that she wouldn't have time to build up a case against any of us in her mind. But my dad couldn't help himself. He called her and let her know we were coming a few days before we arrived.
Our first morning in Chicago, we lingered at my aunts house until early afternoon. Finally, she asked, "um...are you going to go see grandma today?" The three of us just glanced nervously at each other. "They're all afraid," my cousin said sweetly.
Finally, we decided to bite the bullet and go. We arrived and rang the buzzer to her apartment. As we approached her door, she poked her head out. She looked so tiny and vulnerable, sloe eyes darting nervously around the hall. Nothing to be afraid of.
Her apartment was tiny and immaculate. There wasn't much storage, but she had saved gifts for all of us, gifts she had obviously been amassing for some time. She gave Simone a teddy bear and a tea set, among other things. Later I found a note attached to the teddy bear that read "To Bobby's granddaughter, Valentines Day 2006."
At 86, she was beautiful and very vain. She didn't allow any photos to be taken, but I was able to sneak a few of her and Simone due to her lack of understanding of digital cameras. When she caught me she made me delete most of them, but I secretly kept one.
As we were leaving, we passed the building's custodian in the hall. She pointed at Simone and excitedly told him "That's my girl!"
Over the next few days, we took her to lunch and did some walking. She doted on Simone. She always wore high heels and attractive dresses. She tired out relatively quickly, but the fact that she was walking around at all stunned me. The cancer had broken several or her ribs.
She had always loved fried foods, but she was weight conscious and never allowed herself to eat them. We visited her on her birthday, but in her mind that was no excuse to cheat. In my mind, the real excuse was her impending death, which no amount of avoiding fatty foods would prevent. I wanted to scream it at her, but all I could say was "Grandma, it's your birthday!"
In turn, she pointed an accusing finger at Rachel Ray several times, blaming her for making even vegetables fattening.
On our last day, my cousin, brother and I picked her up and took her to lunch. When we dropped her off she wouldn't let us help her to her apartment. Instead, she watched us drive away with her big doe eyes, knowing it would be the last time.
My brother, Simone and I sat in an airport restaurant waiting for our flight home. My brother was especially sad, much more so than I. He wished we had seen more of her. I didn't. It was the fact that we had so little contact with her that allowed our love to be relatively pure. Our cousins who grew up near her have been on the receiving end of more meanness than we can imagine.
She sent me Juicy Fruit gum.
She poured water on her front steps during frigid Chicago winters an hour before her husband was due home from work.
"I love you, Grandma Mary," I used to say to her on those long ago weekly phone calls.
"I love you, too, granddaughter. I adore you."
I think of my grandmother when I'm angry and resentful. I think of her when I'm nursing a grudge, which I do often. I have her in me, and she is a powerful lesson in keeping that part of me in check. Ending up as miserable as she was is my worst nightmare, yet I never forget that it's possible.
Only a week or two ago, my sweet aunt went to the hospice to take her for a walk. On their way out, a nurse told her to enjoy her dinner. "What do you care what I eat?" my grandmother snapped. "Worry about your own nutrition."
I feel for my dad. Flawed as she was, she was his only mother. He's sixty years old, but the symbolism of losing a parent never loses its potency. Aside from the fact that we love the individual, to lose one's parent is to lose one's protector. The person standing between us and the grave. After they go, we're next. In all the world, there are no adults. I'm also impressed with him, this man who was able to be a loving father despite have no model. He's not done yet. The last lesson a parent teaches their child is how to die. I feel certain that this will be one more thing that he will do better than his parents did.
My great-grandmother died when my grandmother was only eight. Her father sent her sister and her to an orphanage and kept their brother. In nearly eighty years, my grandmother's feelings of abandonment never softened. God could have anything he wanted, she felt. Why did he need her mother too?
Today, I would like nothing more than to believe that Grandma Mary has finally been taken into her mother's embrace. But I doubt it.
