I have been grasping fruitlessly at inspiration lately. A lot of ideas are bopping around, but nothing has structural significance. Today, as I was reading old blog posts, indulging in my own wit and rhetoric, it struck. Years ago, I wrote a tribute to my grandfather and alluded to a future post portraying my grandmother. I have yet to write that. After all, how do I package twenty six years experiencing her greatness into one post and hope to do her any justice? As I reminisced about my Grandpa's death, though, I think I got some valuable material. So here goes.
I did not cry when Grandpa died. Maybe a tear or two, but nothing substantial. Of course I was sad, but I was young, and his death had been expected for some time. He was no longer in pain, and I was able to miss a couple days of school. Plus, besides the usual Thanksgiving feast that year, family friends baked some very yummy condolence treats. I vividly remember eating approximately half a Texas sheet cake, acknowledging that at the very least, Texas had made one valuable contribution to society.
The night of his calling hours, I dressed in black, stood in line, kissed him, and returned to my seat next to Lydia. Even then, the sadness seemed distant. Then Grandma said her last goodbye. She bent over the casket, shakily hugged him and wept as she kissed him one last time. Seeing her raw emotion evoked my own. She had just lost the person she loved most in the world, her teenage sweetheart. They had grown up together, experienced war, the birth of children and the loss of a child together. They had moved homes and jobs, built a strong family and laughed with them. Now he was gone. Even at the age of twelve, I had a small sense of the incredible pain and loneliness she must have felt, and I cried for her.
What most exemplifies Grandma's character, though, is the months following Grandpa's death. Nothing changed. We still had dinner every Sunday and the occasional grandchildren sleepover. She laughed, danced, and made absolutely ridiculous jokes at the expense of those who were not as witty as she*. She still gave the same feisty response to a politician she did not approve of or a ref who made a bad call. She still tightly embraced each of us when we left and told us to be safe and how much she loved us. I know she hurt, and once in a while, you could hear it in her fading voice or see it in a glimmering gaze, but that never affected how she selflessly cared for everyone around her. She was a rock.
And she still is. My aunts continue to call her multiple times a week, and my dad continues to visit her almost daily. She claims it is because he needs his afternoon nap, but I know it is because of his love and respect for her.
Gram's is always one of my first stops on a visit home. I'm sure to have a hungry stomach, because I know she will offer me some sort of goodie. We will talk about my job, and she will tell me I should move back home. I will defend myself by saying I am able to have so many different experiences and do good, but a part of me wants nothing more than to stay within the safety of her couch forever. She will tell me how my generation doesn't appreciate anything, doesn't know what it is like to come from nothing, to have to scrounge to support your family and find unity in destitution. I will staunchly defend my generation, saying that we are not all lazy, entitled souls who expect everything handed to us. Yet, I know she speaks some truth*.
They don't make them like you anymore, Grandma. My life and the lives of your four children, seventeen grandchildren, and eighteen* great grandchildren, would be so much less beautiful without you as their foundation. You have done the name Anna proud.
*Sometimes this was because they were merely children, but they were not exempt.
*Even in saying this, I will still staunchly defend my generation the next time I see her.
*Maybe, who knows? Is Annie pregnant again?
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