I was well into adulthood before I realized how incredibly lucky I was to have all four of my grandparents still living. Especially when I met my husband, and realized he had not known his grandparents well and had only known them as a child and teen, I took a step back and felt gratitude. In addition, I much more frequently counted the blessings they have bestowed upon my life, rather than taking them for granted.
I lost my mom's dad first. An incredibly successful business man, he had succombed to an Alzheimer-like disease not too many years after retiring. My other grandfather made it to 99 1/2, though he'd been telling us for decades prior to that what a good life he had lived and that he was ready to meet his maker. It became the family joke that he might be ready to meet his maker, but apparently, his maker wasn't quite ready to meet him yet.
His wife, my dad's mom, was a quintessential grandma. She baked each person's favorite cookies when we visited, she made homemade presents for us, she was proud of us no matter what. I still have unfinished needlework of hers that I just can't bring myself to give or throw away. She loved dogwood, and unfortunately, she once let some family member know she kind of liked ducks, so she had quite a collection of duck everything when she passed. Even in her retirement home years, she found ways to have cookies stashed for us when we visited. I miss her terribly, and I have planted a dogwood and cross-stitched stockings for children in our family in her honor.
My Grandma Betty is my mom's mom. We have been blessed to have shared a beautiful relationship, mostly as adults. I wasn't that close to her as a young child--I spent much more time around my other grandma then. But during my college years and as I became an adult, a bond grew between me and this grandma. This at times caused tension between me and my mom, because, as these things go, we often have an entirely different relationship with our parents than our children do. But I think God knew what She was doing when she created grandmothers and grandfathers, and the whole dynamic is part of growing up, separating, and choosing which parts to keep of where we came from. Not to mention those chances grandparents get to be different with grandchildren than they were with their own kids.
Grandma Betty is one of the most quietly generous people I know. The enormity of her generosity still catches me off guard, as much as the attitude with which she does it. She acts like it's expected of her to give this much. From her, I have learned the embodiment of "To whom much is given, much is required." How she has chosen to be generous is as much of a gift to me as that she is generous.
Grandma Betty rarely cooks. Instead, she finds wonderful, special treats and quaint restaurants and creates special meal times. I visited her many times in a home she used to have in California, usually in the spring, and we would spend long hours talking over breakfast (with fresh squeezed orange juice and freshly brewed swiss water decaffinated coffee) or lunch on the porch, which always seemed to include a few radishes and hamentashen, a three-cornered, fruit-filled pastry she found at a local bakery. She had camelia bushes, and bought boquets of Protea flowers from a farm nearby. Once, I found Protea flowers at a Trader Joe's near my home in Washington. I couldn't wait to get them home and call her to tell her I got them. She laughed with me and we reminisced about old visits. I sent her camelia's on her birthday from the tree in my yard, and she called to gush over their successful arrival in Indiana in winter.
My grandma's home is the only home that has remained constant throughout my life. When I was a little girl, I played barbies behind a blue chair in her living room and slept in my mom's old room, which had a cool three panel mirror a bathroom with wonderful old wall paper. She has a cuckoo clock in her breakfast nook (and she has a breakfast nook...), a screened in back porch, and a finished basement with a small player piano. Until recently, she still hauled her laundry up two stories to hang out on the porch off her upstairs bedroom. She didn't have to haul it down to the basement, because there are laundry chutes on each floor. She has given me countless gifts throughout the years, but by far the most precious is her love of me and my family.
She's not well. After hitting her 90th birthday a few years ago, she's had ever-increasing challenges. Though still in her own home, now with around-the-clock care, she is failing. I will be visiting next week, making one of those heart-wrenching journies where you know it will be the last time you see a beloved person alive.
As I grieve the loss of her faculties and abilities and the parts of her that she has shared with me so generously over the years, I am aware that a rite of passage is in the wings. My last living grandparent is dying. Soon, I will be one generation closer to parting this world.
At church, there is a hymn that I love called "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God." There is a part that speaks of how saints are all around us, ordinary people doing good in the world:
"You can meet them in school, or
In lanes, or at sea,
In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,
For the saints of God are just folk like me,
And I mean to be one too."
While I believe all my grandparents are saints, the truth is that I have a very special place in my heart for Grandma Betty. She has been my Fairy Grandmother, appearing predictably and unpredictably with her own quiet magic wand, showering me and my loved ones with so many gifts that I might have had a time or two when I thought I was a princess. She has been a constant touch point in the midst of life's chaos. Her generosity has not been earned, nor deserved, nor taken for granted, but it has graced my life and helped to make me who I am. When my time comes, as Fairy Grandmothers go, I mean to be one too.
