Screaming in the Dark

(Image from Gypsy Tarot)

I feel like I’ve been writing a lot of heavy lately so tonight I just want to talk about my grandma. For whatever reason I have been thinking about my her (my father’s mother) a lot. She passed away in 2014 and though I don’t think about her every day I wish I could call her and go visit. I wish I could walk through her house one more time. I spoke at her funeral and I wish I had my speech but it fell out of my pocket on the way home and I’ve never seen it again.

This grandma was the quintessential 1950s housewife. She had specific days that she vacuumed (with her vacuum cleaner that I’m pretty sure was from the 60s) and days that she grocery shopped and cleaned the bathroom. Everything was on a schedule. She was also meticulously organized. When my grandfather passed away my dad and uncles had been taking care of them around the clock so I took some time off work to give them a break and spend quality time with my grandma. One of the things I remember vividly is making her lunch and her explain that the bread she wanted was on the third shelf in the freezer on the right hand side behind the casserole. Sometimes I wonder how many frozen casseroles got thrown away when she moved into an assisted living home.

My grandmother was also one of those people who sent cards for every holiday. She was the only person who ever sent me an Easter card and there are more Valentine’s Days than I care to admit that the only card I received was from her. She passed away not long before my birthday and it was an odd moment when I realized that I would never receive another card from her. My father’s birthday is ten days after mine and when I said that at the funeral I looked over at him and saw him break down crying on his wife’s shoulder. I did not look at him again because I knew I wouldn’t make it through the rest of what I had to say.

As a kid I loved that she was always trying new desert recipes. She was not her own hype person though. She would always run down the list of available deserts this one is too dry, this one too sweet, etc. But across the board they were always good. As much as I loved her desert experiments I miss her persimmon pudding with glaze the most. They had a persimmon tree in the backyard and every year she made persimmon pudding and persimmon bread. (There were also two different varieties of orange trees so there was always one with fruit on it. For breakfast she would always walk into the backyard to pick oranges for fresh squeezed orange juice.)

One of the things that I didn’t talk about at her funeral despite the fact that it tickled me to no end was bridge. Her and my grandpa played bridge for years and year. We were always hearing stories about their bridge group. But when I was spending time with her after my grandpa passed she told me that she never liked bridge. She found the game boring. I felt like that gave me a deeper glimpse at who she was. She spent all this time playing a game she hated so that she could see her friends. It also made me laugh really hard.

In a different life where she wasn’t a homemaker she would have been a real estate agent and especially as she got older she would have sold so many houses. She had a folder above her desk in the kitchen that had all the for sale fliers for all the houses in the neighborhood over the years. So she could tell you the last time any house sold and for how much. And she did that for fun. Or interest.

She is the person who taught me how to sew. Which is why I went to fashion design school and why I quilt and despite hating to do it I can probably repair any garment you ask me to. When we were little my sister and I would spend a week every summer at my grandparents house. When we got older my sister stopped going but I still went every year and would spend the entire week sewing. I remember the little details about those summers. She figured out that my favorite Haagen-Dazs bars were the chocolate with dark chocolate ones. So there were always plenty in the freezer. She insisted that you wrap the bottom in a paper towel so it didn’t drip. She got the Vita paper towels that feel like fabric. I can still feel the paper towels and taste the stick of the ice cream bar. I can still see the aging beach towels they had for using when you swam in the pool.

Sometimes I wonder who she would have been if she had been born in a different era. Once I was talking to her after I got my first apartment alone and she wistfully said “I wish I could have done that.” She went from her father’s home to her husband’s home. Because that is what you did back then. She was smart and strong and all that went into keeping the perfect home, and raising her children. She was wonderful, I wish I had asked her what she wanted.

When my grandfather was dying I tried to visit but was too scared to go sit with him and I will always regret that. So when my grandmother was dying I went and sat with her. And I am blessed that the last thing I ever said to her was “I love you”, she laughed in an uncomfortable way because we didn’t do that on that side of the family. Then she said that she loved me too and she died just a few hours later.

Go tell someone you love them, just because. You never know when what you’re doing is going to become a treasured memory. How was she to know that her paper towel choice would always make me smile.