I Have the Write

STALKING GRANDMA

            I was looking at pictures the other day, as I do on occasion.  Every year, with the approaching holidays, I find myself more and more drawn to the photographs.  I long for those who have gone, and the pictures remind me of a faraway time when they were here. 

             So, I’m looking at the pictures and noticing, for the first time, that in most every picture where my grandma appears, I am there, too.  As a toddler, I am on her lap or resting my head in her lap.  As a pre-teen, I am standing next to her, hugging her with one arm.  As the teenaged head of household, I am never more than six feet away from her.  It became comical as photo after photo was the same; it was as if I were her stalker.       

               While my mom was the best, dearest buddy I’ll have in my lifetime, Grandma really was more like a mother toward me.  I was always on my super best behavior with Grandma, because one stern look from her could break my heart.  I found her so cool and sophisticated, this working woman of the ‘70s.  She was always well-dressed and would come by our house with a box of Mel-O-Cream donuts nearly every Saturday after a trip to Myers’ or having her hair done.  She made the most fantastic vegetable soup you’d ever put in your mouth, and her nails were always perfectly manicured.  Other kids’ grandmas stayed home and made apple pie and watched soaps all day.  My grandma was in the workplace, earning a living. 

             Grandma was the most physically affectionate toward me of anyone in the family, and I appreciated the sweet way she’d stroke my long hair and call me “angel.”  I was one of the few people who got to see her softer side, and because I am so like her, I value her sharing that with me.  In my eyes, she was the ideal:  a nicely turned out working woman who was confident, competent and capable.  She could be cold and aloof, or she could be my cuddly Grandma. 

             She kept her house ice-cold, and although she’d kill me for saying this, I thought it was so cool that she kept her teeth in a container.  I always looked forward to Easter when she’d invariably give Scott and me a huge, cream-filled chocolate egg and Valentine’s Day when we’d get our own small heart-shaped box of Fannie May’s.  Grandma never, ever swore; once, in all my life, I heard her say, “damn,” and I ‘bout died.  At times when I feel sad or lonesome or vulnerable, I will hear the little girl inside me say, “My grandma LOVED me,” and I feel better.

             In the last picture of us together, the one I cherish most, we’re at the beach.  We’re getting ready to leave, and I am unrolling her pant legs.  She has her hand on my back.   And when I see that picture, I am there again, in that moment, on that day.  I can smell the fishy air and feel the pant leg in my hands.  She and I are there, just as it was, and I know if death were to separate us for a thousand lifetimes, I’d never forget what she was to me.  My blood beats, in part, because of her; she’ll never be gone from me but held just out of reach where thoughts of her can always make me feel warm. 

12-3-11