Grandma

I decided to post a completely separate post about my grandmother - mainly to avoid one very long post. I would name her, but she had one of those rare, one of a kind names that you wouldn't forget, like Big Bertha.

Grandma was a one of a kind woman. She had six children that she raised with her husband in Detroit, Michigan. I don't know at what point that my grandparents divorced, if they ever legally did; but I never remember them together. My grandmother was involved in a severe automobile accident when she was young (likely after all her children) and she suffered serious facial damage. Apparently, my grandmother was a beautiful woman, in her day. After the accident she had a broken nose, broken jaw and serious facial issues. I believe that she had wires put in her face and jaw. Again, this was well before I was ever born, so they are just stories that I have heard over time.

What I did know about my grandmother was that she wore glasses. Large glasses, which were oversized for her petite, 4'10" frame. She may have even been shorter, I just remember she was little. Her glasses were held on her round, aging face by a piece of often yellowing scotch tape. She tried to cover the tape by her heavily banged white bob hair style. She loved to smoke. Long, skinny cigarettes, held by her long, frail, boney fingers which had equally long, real painted nails.

Grandma loved her cigarettes. She loved to come over on Sunday's for dinner and would bring a six pack of Coors beer and her Royal Velvet bag of pennies for penny poker and chain smoke. Grandma would typically clean house and rob me of my vital penny possessions during strange poker games of five card stud, five card draw, blind baseball, etc. Grandma always seemed to make up her own "special rules" that subsequently always worked in her favor! She would drink one or two beers and would always leave before dark. The remaining beers would sit in our refrigerator for months, until she visited again, or until mom decided to cook the god-awful ham with beer. (Mind you, I still am not a fan of ham!)

Grandma drove a brown Reliant K Car. My first car. It had light brown interior. To this day, I will never again own a brown car or a car with similar interior. I believe her subsequent car was a silver convertible, I can't recall the make anymore, maybe a Sunbird. Anyway, Grandma thought she was hot stuff in that car. A car she didn't drive well, as it was too big for her aging body, but it was a nice looking car.

Grandma was also a huge fan of red. She always wore the latest styles. If they weren't popular then, grandma made leggings and oversized sweaters/shirts a fashion statement. She mainly wore red, black and white. If she liked something, she typically had it in all three colors. She also loved stripes. And grandma's hands were always well adorned with about 6 pounds of very large rings that she struggled to hold up on her 90 pound frame in addition to her large beaded red, black or white necklaces.

Grandma was also not a cook. She wasn't that happy go lucky grandmother that everyone dreamed of. The one that loved her grandchildren. The one that laughed and joked and made chocolate chip cookies. Grandma again loved red. Red sauces. Everything grandma made - from her spaghetti, goulash, meat loaf, chili, noodles with sauce - you name it, it was all the same. It was bland and gross. It was overcooked in the small apartment she had that she kept at 102 degrees and it had some form of red sauce.

Every year for our birthday we would get $5.00. Sometimes, she would send gifts. Always very inappropriate. Like the year when I was 10 and my brother was 13 and we received Underroos - I got Wonder Woman and my brother got Superman - four sizes too small! So holidays weren't always well anticipated for receiving of gifts, until we got older and then it was just for a good laugh. But it was clear that grandma had a lot of grandchildren and children and for the most part, everyone received the same thing, or the same value. Not that I expected much from grandma, she did afterall live in one of those stifling senior citizen housing apartments, although she lived alone. She didn't work. We were also frequent recipients of her government cheese and other things she refused to eat.

Grandma passed away in 1995. I was in college and away at a church retreat when I received the call. Grandma had been very ill, plagued with mouth cancer and likely a slew of other medical issues. She was on a feeding tube and her hospital room was my mother's family room. I didn't go home much during those last years. My grandmother was extremely frail. She was unable to talk, other than the uttering of a few words. She wrote messages on her pad of paper, that scribbley due to her frailty and penmanship. She loved her Symphony chocolate bars. I remember always buying them for her, and the horrific mess that they made as the chocolate melted in and out of her mouth. I'm sure it was one of the last tastes she could actually taste, chocolate.

I wish that I had wonderfully warm and cherished memories of my grandmother, of all of my grandparents. I wish that I found the elderly to be endearing and enchanting, a warmth of love and knowledge. Able and willing to share their livelihood and stories with those willing to share an ear, but I don't.

In college, in an attempt to alter my feelings toward the elderly, I did an internship with Adult Services. I found the experience to be rather challenging and initially guilt provoking and somewhat painstaking. I did have several clients that were my favorites. They were the epitome of grandparents, often left abandoned by their families but full of warmth and stories. Always welcoming and willing to engage with me, a listening person. Then of course there were the crotchety, elders that I couldn't get away from quick enough. The ones that had nothing nice to say and felt it was their given right to be mean and nasty, afterall they had lived a hard life and deserved the opportunity to make it hell for everyone else. Never, will I feel that old age gives one the right or prerogative to be mean and nasty, ever. Then there were those in between. The people that were sustaining in life. They had nothing to look forward to, nothing to live for. They often were faced with financial difficulties or health problems that left them in dire conditions. Like the one man that I feared would burn his house down as he choose to heat it with the open door on his oven.

After I graduated college, I interviewed for a position at a nursing home. I was offered the job, which I subsequently refused as I couldn't face working with geriatrics. No matter how much I wanted to embrace the elderly and the history, the fear of death and dying as well as the negativity of haggard elderly was too much for me to handle.

I often wish that I still had grandparents. I envy friends that have grandparents that are still alive. Relationships that relish in love and warmth. I have my own stories of my grandparents, long distance stories, but it would have been nice to have recent ones. Nice that my son would have been able to meet his great grandparents on his maternal side. Fortunately, my son has all of his grandparents, and even great grandparents on his father's side. He has yet to experience death. My mother and step-father are exemplary role models of true grandparents and for that I'm forever grateful, as I'm sure one day looking back on his grandparents, so will my son!