Goodbye to my Grammie

I was looking forward to celebrating my grandmother’s 100^th birthday with her in Florida tomorrow with a festive pumpkin pie decorated with candles, but alas, she was never much for milestones and took her last breath earlier this week, just 3 days shy of the big day.  No Smuckers recognition on the Today show for Lois Estelle Knapp Maloney born on October 24^th, 1919, but she did not like the spotlight anyway and was probably happy to pass peacefully, unknown to most of the world.  Only .017% of the population lives to be 100; my Grammie was certainly unique but not because of her impressive statistics.  

I have written about my grandmother several times over the years as she was a major influence in my life, and I always thought we shared a special Cancer/Scorpio astrological bond.  She lived a wonderfully full, yet simple life and I am grateful that she was part of my life for so long.   I have so many stories and memories of her that I could fill a book, and maybe someday I will.  She visited me in most of the places I lived, except for NYC and LA – she was not much of a city person.  She crossed the ocean to see us when we lived in Belgium by herself when she was 81 years old, and we took a hot air balloon ride over the hills of UT when she was 87; she drove to Boston to help out when both of her great grand children were born.  She was always there when I needed her, without judgement or questions.   

She was a farm girl at heart and had a lifelong passion for animals and her vibrant garden.   She always had a home-cooked, hearty meal on the stove, and I can still see her in the pantry with flour covering her checkered apron while she whipped up Russian tea cookies, cardamom buns, or apple pies for dessert (or breakfast, or teatime).  She hung her laundry on the clothesline between the shed and the garage for that crisp country air smell. The frugality of the WWII era made her a friend of the earth before it became trendy; she was a consummate recycler, composter, and follower of the “if its yellow let it mellow” mantra.  Her kitchen was cluttered with tools, and dust could often be found on her bookshelves, but that didn’t matter to us.  She had a quiet contemplative demeanor, never one to scold or make a fuss.  The letters that she wrote to me over the years always began with "Kristie Dear..." This was the Grammie that I loved with all of my heart and she could not have been more perfect in my mind.

She could also surprise me as happens from time to time when you glimpse an adult alter ego of someone you’ve only known in a certain familial role.  I was unhealthily addicted to the Outlander series (as many of you know) and was in the midst of reading all 8 books several years ago.  I went to visit my Grammie in her assisted living facility in western MA, where she had recently moved, and low and behold, the 7^th installment in the series was sitting prominently on her coffee table amidst Reader’s Digest condensed books and Yankee magazines.  Even though these were historical fiction books, they were quite racy and my grandmother proudly admitted that she had read all of them.   We talked on the phone just before her 90^th birthday and she was excited to report that she was able to renew her driver’s license through the mail, thus extending her freedom for a few more years.  I was happy for her, but slightly worried about the rest of the driving population in New England.

I don’t think I ever viewed her as being progressive, but in retrospect, she really was.  She wore a strapless bikini on her honeymoon in 1942.  She was an OR nurse and worked at the hospital until she was well into her 70’s.  She drove her little yellow Fiat pretty fast as I recall, a fact which I belted out in front of all the adults in the room one day, much to her chagrin.  She introduced me to coffee (with cream and sugar of course) at a young age.  She let me go out on a “car date” when I was only 14 years old (this was against the rules in my own home).  She worked when my mom and her brothers were young and throughout my entire childhood. She was a bring home the bacon (from the pig farm down the street) and fry it up in a pan type of dame.  I was remarkably unaware of her professional life, for she did not bring her work home with her.  She never seemed stressed, tired, or unhappy about having a career in addition to shouldering the brunt of the domestic chores.  In fact, I don’t think I ever heard my grandmother complain, about anything, ever.   

Even though she has physically left this earth, her presence pops up all over my house.  The antiques that she left me, the bone china tea cups she collected over the years, the collages that I made with her photographs, letters, and my grandfather’s artwork, the silver candy dishes with initials belonging to distant relatives, the sweaters that she knit for me and my children made from washable acrylic yarn (practical for washing!), and the silk table runners she wove on her loom.  But she was not a material girl, and though I love having mementos of her in my midst, she left me with much more than family heirlooms. I visited my Grammie a few months ago, and though she was mostly not herself and I’m not certain she knew exactly who I was, I hugged her and took in the smell of her soft skin and rested my head gently on her shoulder like I was a child again.  I whispered that I knew she was ready to go, and that I loved her.  I relayed to her how she had taught me to be a better mother, a good friend, a tolerant wife, and a thoughtful person.   I am so happy that I was able to share these thoughts before she died. Too often we can’t find the words or get too caught up in our own lives to tell the people we love how we feel and the impact they have on us.

I am infinitely sad that she is not here anymore, even though I know she is happier wherever she is.  I will miss writing letters to her and sharing my banal daily news and attempts at whatever creative activity I was pursuing that month. I treasure the unconditional love she gave me and her calm but reassuring presence on this planet.  I am not religious, but I do believe in a spiritual Buddhist-inspired afterlife. I picture her free of the confines of the wheelchair, surrounded by her dogs, cats, horses and yellow finches, walking around the big meadow holding hands with my grandfather. I hope that I have made her proud and she knows that she will live on in my heart, and her essence will always be reflected in the way I conduct my life, love my children, and treat those around me with respect and kindness.   And most of all in my appetite for dessert at any time of day.  

And now I write to you with 40 days of a barren dwelling under my belt.  Many are curious about my silence, and eager to know if I’ve had some sort of mental breakdown, crying in the aisles of the grocery store as I plop a handful of items into my cart, enough to feed two people with rapidly expanding love handles.  

My life has transformed for sure, but it is not the grim, torpid existence I once imagined.  I am free from the confines of the groundhog-day-school/sports practice timetable.  Instead of racing around like an idiot making 3 different meals at 5:30 pm, I can often be seen enjoying the last visage of sunshine sprinkling its way across the grass shoots while wallowing in the warm quiet of a beautiful fall day.  The less favorable result of having no constraints, is that I also often have a cocktail in my hand at this time of day.  “Why not?” seems to outweigh any arguments the angel on my shoulder might be able to conjure.  

I take increased pleasure in watching my dogs bark, play and sprint from one end of the house to the other like a competing track team.  Less than a year ago, I would yell at them to stop ruining my walnut floors with their claws during the daily canine combat session.  This was the same person who felt the need to have everything clean and be on time to every event.  Who was she and why was she so fixated on tidiness and punctuality?   Who cares if there are dust bunnies in the corners, dishes in the sink, and we are a few minutes late?   I can proffer this latently discovered wisdom to my younger peers who are in the throes of parenting until I am blue in the face, but I suspect one can only make this leap in hindsight.  When you are juggling so many balls and have little control over where they land, sometimes having a clean sink can provide at least a fleeting sense of command in an otherwise chaotic landscape.  

Some days I wake up feeling like I’m 28 again, ready to conquer the world and seek out a new career path.  The world is filled with infinite oysters, just waiting for me to crack them open and reveal a pearly white entrepreneurial opportunity.  Other days, I am convinced that I am merely a sagging, washed up, unrecognizable version of myself, who has little to show for the last 22 years other than my maternal efforts and domestic contributions.  Now that the trees are gone, I’m having a hard time finding a befitting forest to forage in, even though I frequently walk the dogs in search of it.

Embarrassingly, in my futile stupor, I’ve even found myself talking about grandchildren!  Not that we will have any soon, or perhaps at all, but it seems to be the next inevitable phase of life hurdling down the runway toward me.  This prospect has encouraged me to consider the next ten years as a selfish gift, filled with global travel, neglected passions such as writing and art, and adventures with friends.  These are the proverbial golden years where we have the gift of middle age circumspection coupled with unencumbered time to pursue life’s frivolous joys (only dampened by hefty tuition responsibilities).  

My husband has a strange compulsion to fill my day with new tasks.  He views me like a vagrant worker standing outside of Home Depot holding a sign “looking for work today”.  It is here that I need to set some boundaries, or I will end up being his slave/personal assistant for the remainder of my childless existence, instead of the free agent I hope to be.  I signed up for a couple of classes, so I am not standing in the kitchen looking conveniently jobless.  I’m hoping to jump start the creative parts of my brain again so I can populate my home with art, and these pages with entertaining banter.   

Staring out the small oval window of the cramped Delta bullet I am traveling in, I am confronted with existential, cliched feelings.  I have one life to live and I am in the second half of it.  Who am I other than wife and mother?  What do I hope to accomplish?  What will “they” say at my funeral?  Will my children question why I chose to stay home and raise them?  Or should I have worked full time and hired a nanny?  Would they respect me more?  Not to pepper you with rhetorical questions that I probably don’t even want answers to, but these are the thoughts that play in my head like a wall street ticker tape at night.  Some of the times in our family life that I stressed about the most, my kids don’t even remember; conversely and perhaps more worrisome, some of the times I cherish the most, they also don’t remember.   However, I am sure that their memories won’t fail them forever.  One day in the future when they are reprimanding their own children, their subconscious will burst through and tumble from their lips in the form of some awful utterance.  They will gasp in horror and think “My God, I sound just like my mother” and the circle of parenting will be complete.