My mom called this morning. My mom never calls. And she called me while I was at work no less. Usually, I figure if mom is calling there is news, generally bad news. But today I figured she was calling with details about a family trip we have scheduled for next week.
It wasn't about the trip. It was news -- sad news.
My grandmother -- her mother -- died this morning. In recent years my grandmother has spent time living with my uncle and aunt in Nevada and my parents in Eastern Oregon. When I lived in Southern California and grandma moved to Henderson, just outside of Las Vegas, I made a point of going to visit her there. She moved to Oregon about a year before I moved back to the state, and since I've been back I have tried to make a point of going home when I can to spend some time with her. I never knew when the next visit might be the last. But I knew our last visit earlier this month would likely be the last. And, sadly, it was.
Unfortunately, now I don't know if I will be able to make it back for her funeral. Timing and finances are conspiring against it. Mom isn't expecting my father, brothers or me to be there, but I really would like to be there. Not to say goodbye to my grandmother. I got to do that a few weeks ago, even if it wasn't a storybook farewell. But more than 30 years have spent far from my childhood home and family. These days, it seems the only time our far-flung family gets together is for someone's funeral. I haven't seen my mom's sister and her husband and most of my cousins on my mom's side of the family since my aunt's funeral 15-17 years ago. And I hold out a little home that I might get to see my uncle's oldest kids, who I have rarely seen since about second grade -- except for two funerals.
I guess as I get older, as my parents get older, I seek some stronger connection to family. Maybe it's because my daughter is getting older too. I hope that someday maybe she will want some stronger connection to my side of the family. I hope she will want to know more about where she comes from. But I realize now I don't have a good understanding of where I come from to even be able to answer those potential questions from her. Most of my knowledge and understanding of my family is filtered through the partially opaque veil of time and memories of issues seen through the flawed vision of a child.
It's times like these I wish I was a better writer. Better at describing my grandmother and the people close to me. I am much more practiced at telling other people's stories. I feel so inept at capturing the essence of the people close to me or even my feelings about them.
It was difficult to see my grandmother in recent years, leading a sedentary life, spending her hours in a glider-rocker in my parents living room. She was always so active and vibrant. It was virtually impossible to catch my grandmother standing or sitting still for long when I was a child.
She was always out tending to the chickens in the chicken coop -- feeding the chicks, gathering eggs. Although I never witnessed the act myself, I also heard her in later years talk about butchering the chickens herself too.
Grandma always kept a large garden -- corn, squash, watermelon, cucumbers, tomatoes, snap beans, peas. The garden was a source of produce during the summer months. My grandfather would seemingly eat cucumbers and watermelon and corn on the cob with every meal while the vegetables were in season. And from grandma's abundant harvest she would can her own veggies in a big, rattling, chattering, steaming canner that created a hell of a racket that could be heard all throughout my grandparent's little house. She worked magic with that canner, turning cucumbers into the best dill pickles on the planned. I never cared much for other home-canned vegetables, like canned tomatoes, or the sauerkraut. But I could never get enough of grandma's pickles. There was also a little adventure involved in trying to get the right pickle out of the jar. To this day, a bite of a good dill pickle reminds me of grandma and her kitchen, but even a good pickle isn't quite good enough.
But grandma's signature dish, at least to us grandkids, was her homemade noodles. We used to beg grandma to make noodles on virtually every visit or family gathering. If we were really good, and grandma had time, we would be rewarded with her special dish. One of my favorite things was to sneak into the kitchen and steal some of the raw noodles from grandma's cutting board. She would roll out dough to just the right thickness and cut the dough into thin strips with a large knife. I don't know what she put into the dough or the broth, but the noodles were sliced heaven. It's been many, many years since I had grandma's noodles. But my uncle now carries on the noodle-making tradition in the family. My grandmother was a good cook and my uncle inherited that from her. That's a gene my mother did not inherit.
I was looking through some family photos my grandmother gave me that had belonged to my aunt. The pictures are in a photo album that belonged to my aunt and grandma gave them to me after my aunt's funeral about 15 years ago. I realized as I was looking through the photos that I never saw my grandmother wear anything but a dress. In one of the photos in the album, my grandparents are standing outside with my mom's oldest sister and brother in-law and their oldest son. Grandma is wearing a white apron over her dress. That's how I remember my grandmother, in a dress that extended below her knee with an apron over it. She wore the apron in the kitchen. She would collect eggs from the chicken coop by holding the bottom of her apron up to make a basket to carry the day's layings in.
The chickens she kept used to scare me as a small boy. They would come after you and peck you in the pen, so I avoided going in there. That was the adult chickens. I used to love the chicks every spring. Grandma used to bring chicks into the house every spring. Perhaps that was to keep them warm, or perhaps it allow us grandkids to see them when we were visiting. Who knows how many hours were spent watching those little chick, giving them names, watching them interact and holding the fuzzy-feathered, chirping chicks in our hands. They were so cute, but the adult chickens were so ugly and mean. But I used to enjoy helping grandma gather the eggs out of the chicken coop. I remember when I was finally old enough to be sent out to the hen house to gather eggs all on my own.
Grandma was always an imposing presence. She was not an overtly affectionate person or a hugger, a trait my mom and I did inherit, and one I'm still trying to grow out of. Of course my father's family was much the same. It's something I attribute to the German-Midwest heritage. But she put her love and affection into caring for her family, growing and preparing hearty meals and spending untold hours in the garden, hen house and kitchen.
I hope somehow the stars align and I get an opportunity to share memories with family and friends, to learn the things I missed about her and her life before I was born, or after our family moved so far from grandma's house and the years before she became the small, frail woman with a failing memory.
A few years ago, before her memory started slipping, I used to ask her about the family to learn things I didn't know about our family. But in recent years, she was remembering things wrong. The answers to questions could not be relied upon to be true or accurate.
It was hard to see grandma in decline. The last time I saw her was extremely difficult. But today, on the day she left us, I choose to celebrate the simple, yet special, memories I have of better times. I am glad my daughter got to meet her. I wish she got to know her as the vibrant woman I remember. I'm not sure if my daughter will remember much about that visit, but I wanted her to know her other great-grandmother and I hope she got at least some glimpse of what made my grandmother great to me.
I miss you grandma.
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Inadequacy of words
I spent a lot of today thinking about my friend, L, who's boyfriend died this week. I didn't hear from her today, and got no reports from friends who had, although one friend, H, gave me some more information on the conversation she had with L on Wednesday.
I was overwhelmed by the need to do something, and the helplessness of not knowing what to do. It is so difficult to know how to comfort the grieving. At least it is for me. And after a while people's attempts to offer aid or comfort sound hollow.
I remember when I was a teenager attending the funeral from my grandfather. My grandpa had been a regular part of my life as a child, and visits to his house were always filled with exploration and wonder. My grandparents lived all over the place in western Nebraska from what I know, but they only had two houses that I remember, one right next to the other one.
The first house, the smaller one, was known as the ditch house. It didn't get that name because their was an irrigation ditch that ran right next to the house, but that's what I thought for a lot of years. It was the ditch house because the "ditch company" and my grandparents called it, owned the place. I now know this was not their house, just as I now know that the ditch company was probably an irrigation district. But it is that house that I associate with so many of my memories of my grandfather.
Like the drawer in the kitchen where my grandparents kept a bunch of tools and assorted stuff. But to me that was always the harmonica drawer, where grandpa's old mouth harps were kept. I never did learn to play one, but I loved trying. All the odd tones that came out of the simple looking device when you blew out, or drew in breath through the little holes. On the rare occasion grandpa could be convinced to play, but the tunes were always too short. Perhaps my love of blues music, particularly when accompanied by a harmonica, are because of my grandfather.
Or Grandpa fixing us grandkids up with small pieces of wood, big old iron nails and hammers, so we could build our own boats to race in the irrigation ditch. It's a wonder one of us didn't drown in that damn thing, and I think one of my cousins almost did once. But that little ditch was the source of hours upon hours of play in the summer, when the weather was warm and the water was flowing.
Grandpa also used to show us how to set irrigation pipe. There were these sections of pipe, probably no more than 3 or 4 feet long and curved to rest on the mound of the ditch. One end went into the water and the other went down into one of the crop rows. In order to get the water flowing you can to siphon it by immersing the tubing in the water and filling it was water, then blocking off the downstream end with your hand. Then you could plunk the end down and the water would flow out of the pipe, and if you did it right, it would keep right on flowing until you pulled the pipe out of the ditch.
When you got old enough, there was a rite of passage. I don't know what the magic age was, but it was sometime after you got old enough to ride with Grandpa in a car and not drive him crazy I suppose. When grandpa thought you were old enough, he would take you with him to work. Grandpa was a ditch rider. And if you were lucky, he would ask you to ride along with him on his midday check of the water levels on the various canals and ditches he monitored. He always had at least two cars. One was kept for good, and one was his ditch riding car. Grandma didn't drive back then. He had some real interesting cars over the years, like an Opal. And he always bought his ditch cars used. One time he even had an old Nova, or something like it, with a fuzzy cover with dingleballs on the dash, like some East L.A. parody, with this old guy driving it. He probably looked like an old Mexican behind the wheel too, as his skin was always darkly tanned and leathery, with a day or two's growth of beard on his chin and cheeks.
Grandpa rarely called me by my name. When we drove up and I went bounding into the house, he'd say, "Well, Skipper, what do you know?" And I always protested that my name was not Skipper. His dog's name was Skipper. I never knew if he named the dog Skipper because he called everyone Skipper, or if he called everyone by the dog's name. And I never had a good answer. "Nothin'" was always my response. I wish he had lived long enough to share with him some things I now know, and more importantly, I would ask him what he knew.
He seemed to know lots of things about cars and water and tools. He built their "new" house by having a barn brought in and put it up next to another smaller house right next to the ditch house. As a child I remember thinking that that just couldn't be done, but somehow he did it. It was Grandpa's house, and I felt protective of it, for I too had put some sweat equity into the place on a summer day, putting insulation into the attic. It was the first time I realized what working up a sweat was. It was hot as hell in that old attic, perspiration just rolling down my head, face, arms, back, chest, and legs. I swear my eyeballs were sweating. We pulled out this old thin, grey insulation (probably asbestos based) and put in new, thick, pink Fiberglas insulation, that made my skin itch. When we finally climbed own out of the attic and walked out into the open air, a refreshing gust of air touched my soaked skin. A feeling of bliss washed over me that would not be equaled or surpassed until I discovered the joys of sexuality.
Grandpa was a tough old dude. He lost three fingers on one hand to an accident. He only had his pinky and thumb on that hand, and he could carry more weight with those two fingers than most men could with a good hand. He used to sit at the dining room table, drinking coffee out of a heavy ceramic cup, holding by the handle with just his thumb and pinky. I challenge anyone to try that themselves even with one of the wimpy little cups people used today. Try it empty. Then fill it full of scalding black liquid and lift that puppy to your lips. Go on. I dare ya.
On his other arm, he had a nasty scar from when his arm got smashed by a small train car at a sugar beet factory. The way my uncle tells the story, Grandpa got up and drove himself to the hospital to get it checked out, his bicep separated from the bone.
My grandfather's funeral was the first funeral I ever attended. I had been to funeral homes before. I had seen bodies in a casket. But I'd never been to a funeral service. As a teenager, struggling to become a man, it was very disconcerting to hear my family members crying all around me while we sat in this little alcove, separated from the rest of the room by a white sheer drapery. Looking out through the lacy fabric at the service made the whole experience a little too surreal. I was feeling claustrophobic, surrounded by my grandmother, mother and aunts who were crying, and my cousins who were crying too. I shed several tears myself and a few sobs escaped by body, but I fought like hell to hold back.
After the service there were all these people coming up to my family saying things like "he's in a better place" and "he's with God now" or "he's looking down on us right now." None of these things brought me any comfort, and after hearing variations on the theme for hours and days on end, it all sounded so phony, especially when people would say things like "Your grandfather would want you to do..." followed by some advice or suggestion for how to mourn or grieve or endure. It made me angry. How the fuck did they know what he would want? Are they wired into the hereafter? I hated the whole litany of lies. I had a similar experience at my aunt's funeral almost 10 years later. I vowed never to tell someone who was grieving that the person they loved and missed is in a better place. If we miss someone, and they aren't with us, that is not better. It's just sad.
Which brings me back to L. I don't know what to tell her, and doubt there is any comfort I, or anyone else, can offer. Grieving must evolve over time. It washes over us like waves on a shoreline, pushing, then receding, only to push us again. But finally the tide goes out, and we can walk on.
I never grieved for my grandfather right after he died. I was too busy trying to stay tough. I never took the time to mourn for him. But the old sonofabitch didn't let me off the hook so easily. His memory caught up to me out of the blue years later. Some memory of my grandfather passed through my mind and I stopped to examine it and remember that time. To remember him. And I cried. I cried for him. And I cried for me because I realized then that I missed him. I miss the question I used to dread:
Well Skipper, what do you know?
Well, I'd tell you Grandpa that I know I loved you and I still miss you, even today, nearly 22 years later.
The only thing I know to do for someone who grieves is to offer them an ear and support. Help them with small tasks, if they seem to monumental to accomplish in their despair. Let them lean on you, or yell at you or cry on your shoulder. And let them know they are cared for and loved, even if their mascara is running or there is snot hanging out their nose. And the ultimate help is if you can just share stories, or let them share stories, and let them discover a smile or laughter once again. Because when we can smile, when we can laugh, we can find hope for happiness again.
L was one of a core group of friends that helped me smile and laugh again when I was grieving the loss of my ex last year. She helped me see a future, even if I wasn't sure I was ready for it. I merely want to return the favor.
That's what friends do.
Grieving
Friends
Family
Childhood memories
I was overwhelmed by the need to do something, and the helplessness of not knowing what to do. It is so difficult to know how to comfort the grieving. At least it is for me. And after a while people's attempts to offer aid or comfort sound hollow.
I remember when I was a teenager attending the funeral from my grandfather. My grandpa had been a regular part of my life as a child, and visits to his house were always filled with exploration and wonder. My grandparents lived all over the place in western Nebraska from what I know, but they only had two houses that I remember, one right next to the other one.
The first house, the smaller one, was known as the ditch house. It didn't get that name because their was an irrigation ditch that ran right next to the house, but that's what I thought for a lot of years. It was the ditch house because the "ditch company" and my grandparents called it, owned the place. I now know this was not their house, just as I now know that the ditch company was probably an irrigation district. But it is that house that I associate with so many of my memories of my grandfather.
Like the drawer in the kitchen where my grandparents kept a bunch of tools and assorted stuff. But to me that was always the harmonica drawer, where grandpa's old mouth harps were kept. I never did learn to play one, but I loved trying. All the odd tones that came out of the simple looking device when you blew out, or drew in breath through the little holes. On the rare occasion grandpa could be convinced to play, but the tunes were always too short. Perhaps my love of blues music, particularly when accompanied by a harmonica, are because of my grandfather.
Or Grandpa fixing us grandkids up with small pieces of wood, big old iron nails and hammers, so we could build our own boats to race in the irrigation ditch. It's a wonder one of us didn't drown in that damn thing, and I think one of my cousins almost did once. But that little ditch was the source of hours upon hours of play in the summer, when the weather was warm and the water was flowing.
Grandpa also used to show us how to set irrigation pipe. There were these sections of pipe, probably no more than 3 or 4 feet long and curved to rest on the mound of the ditch. One end went into the water and the other went down into one of the crop rows. In order to get the water flowing you can to siphon it by immersing the tubing in the water and filling it was water, then blocking off the downstream end with your hand. Then you could plunk the end down and the water would flow out of the pipe, and if you did it right, it would keep right on flowing until you pulled the pipe out of the ditch.
When you got old enough, there was a rite of passage. I don't know what the magic age was, but it was sometime after you got old enough to ride with Grandpa in a car and not drive him crazy I suppose. When grandpa thought you were old enough, he would take you with him to work. Grandpa was a ditch rider. And if you were lucky, he would ask you to ride along with him on his midday check of the water levels on the various canals and ditches he monitored. He always had at least two cars. One was kept for good, and one was his ditch riding car. Grandma didn't drive back then. He had some real interesting cars over the years, like an Opal. And he always bought his ditch cars used. One time he even had an old Nova, or something like it, with a fuzzy cover with dingleballs on the dash, like some East L.A. parody, with this old guy driving it. He probably looked like an old Mexican behind the wheel too, as his skin was always darkly tanned and leathery, with a day or two's growth of beard on his chin and cheeks.
Grandpa rarely called me by my name. When we drove up and I went bounding into the house, he'd say, "Well, Skipper, what do you know?" And I always protested that my name was not Skipper. His dog's name was Skipper. I never knew if he named the dog Skipper because he called everyone Skipper, or if he called everyone by the dog's name. And I never had a good answer. "Nothin'" was always my response. I wish he had lived long enough to share with him some things I now know, and more importantly, I would ask him what he knew.
He seemed to know lots of things about cars and water and tools. He built their "new" house by having a barn brought in and put it up next to another smaller house right next to the ditch house. As a child I remember thinking that that just couldn't be done, but somehow he did it. It was Grandpa's house, and I felt protective of it, for I too had put some sweat equity into the place on a summer day, putting insulation into the attic. It was the first time I realized what working up a sweat was. It was hot as hell in that old attic, perspiration just rolling down my head, face, arms, back, chest, and legs. I swear my eyeballs were sweating. We pulled out this old thin, grey insulation (probably asbestos based) and put in new, thick, pink Fiberglas insulation, that made my skin itch. When we finally climbed own out of the attic and walked out into the open air, a refreshing gust of air touched my soaked skin. A feeling of bliss washed over me that would not be equaled or surpassed until I discovered the joys of sexuality.
Grandpa was a tough old dude. He lost three fingers on one hand to an accident. He only had his pinky and thumb on that hand, and he could carry more weight with those two fingers than most men could with a good hand. He used to sit at the dining room table, drinking coffee out of a heavy ceramic cup, holding by the handle with just his thumb and pinky. I challenge anyone to try that themselves even with one of the wimpy little cups people used today. Try it empty. Then fill it full of scalding black liquid and lift that puppy to your lips. Go on. I dare ya.
On his other arm, he had a nasty scar from when his arm got smashed by a small train car at a sugar beet factory. The way my uncle tells the story, Grandpa got up and drove himself to the hospital to get it checked out, his bicep separated from the bone.
My grandfather's funeral was the first funeral I ever attended. I had been to funeral homes before. I had seen bodies in a casket. But I'd never been to a funeral service. As a teenager, struggling to become a man, it was very disconcerting to hear my family members crying all around me while we sat in this little alcove, separated from the rest of the room by a white sheer drapery. Looking out through the lacy fabric at the service made the whole experience a little too surreal. I was feeling claustrophobic, surrounded by my grandmother, mother and aunts who were crying, and my cousins who were crying too. I shed several tears myself and a few sobs escaped by body, but I fought like hell to hold back.
After the service there were all these people coming up to my family saying things like "he's in a better place" and "he's with God now" or "he's looking down on us right now." None of these things brought me any comfort, and after hearing variations on the theme for hours and days on end, it all sounded so phony, especially when people would say things like "Your grandfather would want you to do..." followed by some advice or suggestion for how to mourn or grieve or endure. It made me angry. How the fuck did they know what he would want? Are they wired into the hereafter? I hated the whole litany of lies. I had a similar experience at my aunt's funeral almost 10 years later. I vowed never to tell someone who was grieving that the person they loved and missed is in a better place. If we miss someone, and they aren't with us, that is not better. It's just sad.
Which brings me back to L. I don't know what to tell her, and doubt there is any comfort I, or anyone else, can offer. Grieving must evolve over time. It washes over us like waves on a shoreline, pushing, then receding, only to push us again. But finally the tide goes out, and we can walk on.
I never grieved for my grandfather right after he died. I was too busy trying to stay tough. I never took the time to mourn for him. But the old sonofabitch didn't let me off the hook so easily. His memory caught up to me out of the blue years later. Some memory of my grandfather passed through my mind and I stopped to examine it and remember that time. To remember him. And I cried. I cried for him. And I cried for me because I realized then that I missed him. I miss the question I used to dread:
Well Skipper, what do you know?
Well, I'd tell you Grandpa that I know I loved you and I still miss you, even today, nearly 22 years later.
The only thing I know to do for someone who grieves is to offer them an ear and support. Help them with small tasks, if they seem to monumental to accomplish in their despair. Let them lean on you, or yell at you or cry on your shoulder. And let them know they are cared for and loved, even if their mascara is running or there is snot hanging out their nose. And the ultimate help is if you can just share stories, or let them share stories, and let them discover a smile or laughter once again. Because when we can smile, when we can laugh, we can find hope for happiness again.
L was one of a core group of friends that helped me smile and laugh again when I was grieving the loss of my ex last year. She helped me see a future, even if I wasn't sure I was ready for it. I merely want to return the favor.
That's what friends do.
Grieving
Friends
Family
Childhood memories
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Friend in need
The packers came from the moving company today. So most of my life is now packed away in boxes, ready for the long trip north. But they will sit waiting for another week before a truck arrives to carry them to my next destination.
They did the work, but I am exhausted. I predict a nap in my future. I stayed up until about 3 a.m. tossing out garbage and trying to prepare for their arrival. I should have stayed up a few minutes longer and unloaded the dishwasher though, because dishes in their this morning were still in there this afternoon after they moving guys left. I mentioned to one of the guys that there were still dishes in the dishwasher, but he wasn't the one who packed the kitchen. Oh well. It's not like I don't have a few boxes left to pack. They left out the TV, stereo, bedding and bed. And the computer of course. Can't go a week, sitting here in an apartment-turned-warehouse without my computer. There are still bills to pay, and address changes to make (even though I don't know where I'm going yet).
The moving guys took a break at noon, so I did as well. As I was returning home, my cell phone rang. One of my best friend's was on the phone and he had dreadful news. A friend of ours, who has just moved out of Palm Springs to be closer to her boyfriend, had called another mutual friend to tell him that her boyfriend had died last night -- apparent heart attack. He was a man in his mid-40s, fit and vibrant. And now he is gone.
She had just moved her stuff home last Friday, and now he is gone.
God certainly has a cruel sense of timing sometimes. The friend, a young woman in her mid 30s, has already lost her parents, now she loses the love of her life.
It's not right. It's not fair. More than that, it's just plain vicious.
I called her cell phone but she didn't answer. I'm not sure what words of comfort I could offer if she did answer. I stammered and stumbled through a phone message, trying not to sound as devastated as I feel for her. I offered to drive up north to help if I she needs anything. I don't know what help I can offer, but I'm not working, the truck won't be arriving for a week, I have the flexibility to help even if I am unsure how to offer aid.
Moving
Death
They did the work, but I am exhausted. I predict a nap in my future. I stayed up until about 3 a.m. tossing out garbage and trying to prepare for their arrival. I should have stayed up a few minutes longer and unloaded the dishwasher though, because dishes in their this morning were still in there this afternoon after they moving guys left. I mentioned to one of the guys that there were still dishes in the dishwasher, but he wasn't the one who packed the kitchen. Oh well. It's not like I don't have a few boxes left to pack. They left out the TV, stereo, bedding and bed. And the computer of course. Can't go a week, sitting here in an apartment-turned-warehouse without my computer. There are still bills to pay, and address changes to make (even though I don't know where I'm going yet).
The moving guys took a break at noon, so I did as well. As I was returning home, my cell phone rang. One of my best friend's was on the phone and he had dreadful news. A friend of ours, who has just moved out of Palm Springs to be closer to her boyfriend, had called another mutual friend to tell him that her boyfriend had died last night -- apparent heart attack. He was a man in his mid-40s, fit and vibrant. And now he is gone.
She had just moved her stuff home last Friday, and now he is gone.
God certainly has a cruel sense of timing sometimes. The friend, a young woman in her mid 30s, has already lost her parents, now she loses the love of her life.
It's not right. It's not fair. More than that, it's just plain vicious.
I called her cell phone but she didn't answer. I'm not sure what words of comfort I could offer if she did answer. I stammered and stumbled through a phone message, trying not to sound as devastated as I feel for her. I offered to drive up north to help if I she needs anything. I don't know what help I can offer, but I'm not working, the truck won't be arriving for a week, I have the flexibility to help even if I am unsure how to offer aid.
Moving
Death
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