22 February 1999

Grammy

I couldn't say for sure what my first memory of my mother's mother is. I do know that she used to look after me often when I was very young and both of my parents were working/studying. Mom used to take me up there to spend the night in the big house on top of Tri Mountain Rd. in Durham.

It was in that house that I read my first Nancy Drew story, watched my first episodes of "Love Boat" and "Charlie's Angels" and "Gilligan's Island". In fact I distinctly remember seeing the "final" episode of "Gilligan" while staying there one the summer. I had a severe case of chicken pox and wound up watching a fair amount of television because lying on my stomach on the floor was often the only remotely comfortable position available to me. Internal chicken pox boils are no fun at all.

At any rate, Gilligan and I were both lying on our tummies in uncomfortable positions one night -- he strapped to the massive trunk of a palm tree, I swathed in a sheet trying to ignore the itch and twinge of the boils and the smell of the alcohol swabs my mother put on my skin relieve the soreness.

I hanging out with my uncles, Ernie, Peter and Gibby and more rarely Aunt Susan. Ernie used to pick me up and twirl me around above his head where I could see the Conestoga wagon-wheel ceiling fixture that dominated the living room. Grammy had lots of little knick-knacks on the shelves in there too. I'd hide behind the large wing-chair and play for hours or entertain myself by trying to read the spines of the books.

I was a flower girl at my Uncle Peter's wedding in a pretty off-white and peach print dress with a white pinafore. I was very proud of my job during that ceremony, I think that was one of the last times that all of my mother's family were all together. That was right before Uncle Ernie died.

He was already sick at the wedding, but I was only four and these things didn't much enter my circle of thought. Ernie died a week or so before I started kindergarten. I remember my mom crying in the kitchen when the phone call came. It took me a while longer to understand.

According to my dad, Ernie's death was a huge factor in my grandparents' divorce. I guess it was about a year after he died that Grampa kicked Grammy out of the house. Their split caused a huge fracture in the family which took years to heal.

Afterwards Grammy got a job to support herself and eventually started taking classes in yoga, French and Italian. She still came often for Christmas bearing bags loaded with presents, peanut butter, books, clothes. Visists from Grammy always heralded a fun time in my life.

After we moved back to the States, she came for Christmas once or twice but we wound up seeing less and less of her. While I was in college in Masschusetts we would stop by her little condo in Durham on the way up and visit Grampa on the way back down to Philly.

She always sends me a card and a $20 bill on my birthday and a card for every holiday arrives just a few days ahead of time. Sometimes with long letters talking about her garden where Ernie's memorial stone sits in floral splendor almost year 'round or about her sewing projects and news about my cousins.

Like with my mother, my path to adulthood has slowly brought my grandmother into focus as a person from the childhood image I had of her.

She turned seventy-nine on Friday, February 19th. We drove up to have dinner with her and wish her a happy birthday. She's as chipper and healthy as always, with a bright smile and many a story to tell, if getting a little bit hard of hearing.

If I can even come close to being as accomplished and with-it as she is at seventy-nine, I think I'll be able to say that I've lived well.