On Grandparents

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my grandparents – my grandmothers in particular. If things work out the way Derek & Kristen want them to, it’s very possible that by this time next year I could be or be about to be a grandma. That’s a very exciting thought to me. I also have one big worry. I am so afraid that I won’t be there in time for the birth. It’s extremely important to me that I am there. Not necessarily in the delivery room, but at the hospital. I so want to share that time with Derek. When the time comes, I will be praying very hard that God gets me there in time. Not that Kristen has a long labor – I don’t want to get a call that she is in labor and we get there 12 hours later and she’s still in labor. I hope she goes to the doctor and he tells her it will be within a day or so and we can leave then. But I guess that’s a worry for later. Really, as long as both Kristen and the baby are fine, then everything else is good.
I’ve been thinking about the Grandma I want to be and that makes me think about my grandmas and what I learned from and loved about each of them.
They were both strong women. Both were widowed; one never remarried, the other did. They both had children and so both were single mothers for awhile. They each knew what that was like so when I became a single mom, they were both always supportive. I remember shopping with Grandma Faye to find fabric for a baby blanket that she wanted to make for me. We looked at the blankets where you just added the border. I remember telling her “They all say That’s Our Baby!” “Well, it is our baby” she said and that was that. I have never ever forgotten that. Money was tight when Derek was little and sometimes I would be a little short on money. I went to Grandma Ruby for help a few times and she would just hand me her checkbook and say “Write what you need”. She never asked why I was short or made me feel worse about having to ask for help than I already did. I was able to help her by taking her shopping and when it got to be where she really didn’t want to go out, I would take her list and do it for her. I was glad to be able to do that for her.
Those are grown-up memories but I think a lot about when I was younger. Grandma Ruby lived in downtown Excelsior in an apartment over a business. It was a loft type apartment and I thought it was so neat. I am still fascinated with lofts today. That apartment was a great place for hide and seek and she would play with us. It was a lot of fun. I always enjoyed staying all night with her. Later, she moved to an apartment over a local funeral home. She would answer the phone or door when the men who worked there were out. We would always have to be really quiet when a family was downstairs, but again, it was a neat apartment. Do you know you get really weird looks when you walk into a funeral home with sleeping bags?? My cousin and I would spend the night with her and sometimes we would take our sleeping bags.

I don’t think I ever saw Grandma Ruby in anything other than a dress. The dress always had pockets (or she had an apron with pockets) and she always had butter rum lifesavers in her pocket. Every once in awhile I will buy a roll of Butter Rum Lifesavers mainly for the smell of them. It reminds me of her. Waldorf salad reminds me of her, too. We always had that when we had dinners there. I also have a book that has the story Jack in the Beanstock in it. I absolutely loved that story. She used to tell me that she couldn’t leave any part of the story out because I knew it all by heart, but that is the story I wanted to hear. She was glad when I was old enough to read it myself! I still have that book. My mom gets upset because after Grandma Ruby died my cousin took some of grandma’s good dishes. Mom feels they should have come to me because I spent more time with her and did more for her. It doesn’t bother me, though, because I have that book and that book means something to me. Someday, I will read that story to my grandchild. It may not be a favorite of theirs and if not, we’ll find another one, but I will read to them. Grandma Ruby always had books and I got my love of reading from both her and my mom.

Grandma Faye used to take me to church with her sometimes and whenever I hear the Hymn “I love to tell the story” I think of her. I think of her when I make hot chocolate. Hers always had lumps of cocoa in it and I loved it! I cannot to this day make hot chocolate with lumps in it. Mine always dissolve. I had a cup yesterday and no lumps! I went to Grandma & Grandad’s every Saturday that they and mom would let me. We had tuna salad sandwiches and “cheezies” most of the time. I still love that. I do eat other kinds of chips with tuna salad, but cheese puffs or something along that line is my favorite. She also had an organ that I loved to play, so maybe that’s where I got an interest in the piano. I never was very good and I didn’t play for others, but I did learn to play well enough to enjoy it. Grandma and Grandad liked to play cards and I think of them a lot of times when I am playing cards. It was fun when I got old enough to be allowed to play. After Grandad died, I would go by and visit grandma and she and I would play some kind of card game. I also learned to call her every night when I got home from work because if I didn’t, she would call me. And if the weather report was for snow or ice, she would tell me to be careful and “don’t slick off in the ditch!” After she died, I missed those evening phone calls.

When I moved to Texas, mom gave me a buffet that was Grandma Ruby’s. It sits in my kitchen. On the bed in our guest room is a bedspread that Grandma Faye crocheted many years ago. I have both of them here in my home with me.

So this is all taking the long way around to the kind of Grandma I want to be. I want my grandchildren to always know that I love them and that I will be there for them no matter what. I will read to them and I will take them to church when I can. I will play games with them and fix them their favorite foods. And maybe there will be something I do or say that I don’t give a thought to, but someday if they hear it or smell a certain smell, they will think of me.

I will share grandmothering duties with Jackie and I am thrilled about that. We are so lucky that Derek & Kristen found each other. She loves Derek as much as we love Kristen and we both will love their children so much. We also love each other, get along and enjoy spending time together. We already share Christmas Eve together and I love it and that will make it easy when there are grandchildren. I think we both look forward to that time.

And maybe someday, we will have a granddaughter who will be thinking about the impending birth of her own grandchild and she will think of us and what she got from each of us and how she is who she is because of Jackie and because of me.