Grandma

Handing over the Christmas baton

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After decades of Christmas perfection, little tremors needled away at our  family tree structure creating (gulp) change. The Thanksgiving after Paul and I got married, Uncle Harold passed away. A few years after that my grandpa passed away. My brothers grew up and moved away, with the exception of my autistic brother Matt. I started to have children of my own. Grandma struggled more and more as she aged with doing all of the cooking, cleaning, and decorating involved in having a family Christmas party. We tried to help her as much as we could. Then one year it all ended. My grandma had open heart surgery the summer that I had my third child. It was at this time that my grandma handed the Thanksgiving and Christmas baton to me.

At the time, we were having my in-laws over every Christmas Eve. Year after year it was pretty much the same. My in-laws would show up 2 to 3 hours late. The table would be set. The food would be cold. The kids would eat supper at bedtime. The kids were tired and hungry which made them very crabby. They would cry and have meltdowns. This upset my mother-in-law which resulted in an argument between her and my husband over her being late. At this point, Paul’s stepdad and I would look at each other across the table with a knowing look that said “here we go again”. One of two things either happened. Paul’s mother would disown him and take off for awhile. Or Paul’s mom would scream at my husband and he would kick her out of the house. Eventually she would come back in both scenarios, the gifts were opened, and the kids would go to bed.

After receiving the Christmas baton, Paul and I did what most reasonable people do. We combined our families to make one big happy family Christmas. Insert thoughts of the National Lampoon’s Christmas here. It did go pretty good for quite awhile. Whoever showed up, showed up. We ate at 1:00 PM. If you were late, there were leftovers. Things went pretty well, although after awhile it seemed that my mom and mother-in-law started an unspoken “best grandma” competition. My mom won that one hands down because she could afford nicer gifts and spent more time with the kids. Then my in-laws started to find excuses not to come for Christmas. Either someone was sick, or my personal favorite was that Paul’s stepdad scheduled a colonoscopy the day after Christmas. Priceless.

Oh family, you bring laughter and tears but we love you anyway.

Then a couple of years ago, Luke and his family bought a house that was bigger than mine. I handed him the Christmas baton. All problems solved.

Childhood Christmases in a (chest)nut shell

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Childhood Christmases in my mind were perfect. Except for that one Christmas that we aren’t going to talk about today. It was as if everyone knew how difficult the rest of the year was so they did everything possible to make two days of the year perfect for my brothers and I, our birthdays and Christmas.

My grandparents had a small Thomas Kincade like house. It was warm and cozy on the inside while cold winter storms raged outside. Icicles hung from the porch and garage roofs dripping droplets of shattered ice onto the walkways, one last obstacle against the warmth that beckoned from within. Upon entrance, steam whisked away into the frigid air from the kettle of boiling potatoes next to the open door. The aroma from the ham cooling on the stove top next to the potatoes was intoxicating. Grandma had a counter full of food, homemade pies and cookies too. Every year grandma had a chest cold. She coughed and coughed though she didn’t seem to mind. Soon Aunt Grace showed up with her brother Harold. Aunt Grace always brought cranberry sauce and the fruitcake that my brothers and I didn’t like to eat.

I was always first to ask if we could open our presents right away. Grandma always said “no”, but we could look inside our stockings that were hung over the fireplace. My brothers and I each had a stocking that contained our favorite candy. There was a tiny stocking for grandpa hanging in the corner that held one peanut. What drew our attention the most though were the boxes of wrapped gifts under the tree. We were always peeking in hopes of finding a big box with our name on it. My grandparents cut their own Christmas tree from their tree farm. It stood on top of a large round end table in front of a big picture window. The tree was always lopsided in some way or another, but we never noticed. Grandma always covered the trees with tinsel and old fashioned ornaments.

After lunch, we all sat in our places that we sat in every year to open gifts. Uncle Harold sat in the rocking chair near the fireplace. He always laughed a lot on Christmas day. We didn’t see him a lot the rest of the year because he was always working. I sat on the love seat near the tree. In my memory, there was always 3 feet of snow on the ground with an inch of playful snow that swirled around in the wind. After we were done opening gifts, we would have a fire in the fireplace. Christmas day was the only day of the year that my grandparents used the fireplace.

We always stayed at my grandparents until it got dark. We played with our new toys. The men slept in their chairs. Aunt Grace always made sure that the dishes were done. Grandma put away the extra food and took down the fancy table with the red tablecloth. It was Christmas perfection in a nutshell. Even if Matt had a meltdown on Christmas day, I never remembered that. I couldn’t remember that. To me it was always perfect and magical.

Cool, warmth

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It has been a warm October. The jack ‘o lanterns that the kids carved at the harvest party earlier this month turned to squash. They rotted and melted like a witch getting doused in water. I am not complaining. It has allowed me to continue with my summer isn’t over delusion a little bit longer. My grandpa would have had his birthday earlier this month. Usually right around my grandpa’s birthday, my grandma would write flurries on her calendar when the first trace of snow swirled. Her calendar was completely empty except for the word flurries. Sometimes it’s the little things that I miss the most.

I haven’t had to change my running schedule at all due to the weather. I haven’t dusted off the treadmill yet either. Running this time of year does have its challenges though. Earlier this week I ran by a farmer harvesting his corn field. He spooked out a huge rabbit and it ran straight towards me. Difficult decisions ensued for that rabbit once he noticed me. There was nowhere for him to run.

Today I had my monthly 18 mile run. The last few miles were painful and hard to endure. Every muscle was screaming at me to stop. I made it though. It took me 2 months to recover from my knee pain from the marathon. I have been running the last 2 weeks relatively pain free. This gives me hope that next spring I can sign up for another marathon and beat the crap out of myself again. Whoo hoo!

Waiting….for bad news

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Waiting…I sit here waiting. Worried. Waiting for bad news. I know it is going to be bad. I think of all the times that we didn’t get along. The guilt of feeling annoyed by you most of the time. You aren’t a bad person. You just talk before you think. My daughter called you rude the last time we saw each other. You commented that my hair looked terrible. Did I mean for it to look so bad? Did my finger get stuck into a light socket? I told you that I wasn’t offended, that your comments about my hair didn’t bother me. It didn’t bother me. What did bother me is all of the empty promises you made to my kids your only grandchildren, the times you said that you would show up and didn’t. 

Now I am thinking that you might not be here to see your granddaughter graduate next year. I feel terribly saddened by this. When I saw you last weekend, you did not look good. You were out of breath, wheezing, and coughing. The cough that lasted over a year. You have been continually sick for months at a time with head and chest colds. Your doctor thought that it might have been some of your medications, that once he took you off of the offending pill that you would get better. But you got worse. Now you are in the hospital, waiting. We worry and wait, wanting the distraction of work but have difficulty focusing. What do we tell the children? That the doctors think that you have lung cancer. So we sit here waiting, waiting for the bad news.

Dreaming…

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Wow, what a busy day. Most of the work is done, now I just need to pack my bags. I got in a 12 mile run. You are probably just sitting on the edge of your seat wondering if I am one of those people that work out while I am traveling for business or on vacation. The answer is no, I don’t. Last time I didn’t even pack my athletic shoes, which was stupid because I ended up walking a lot in sandals. Seems like every time I travel now I have been know to add and check stuff off my bucket list. I am excited that I decided to meet up with an old friend that moved to Texas. She has horses. I never rode a horse. I am not the kind of person that says I know I haven’t seen you in almost 2 decades but can I ride your horse. So I am leaving my options open. Maybe it will be uneventful, but it never seems to go that way for me. 

The last couple of days have been stressful, okay the last couple of weeks. I have been flailing around trying to keep my head above water when yesterday a weed wrapped itself around my foot. I went to the pharmacy and my insurance refused to refill my antacid prescription. I was so upset that I started shaking and my stomach burned. “You’ve gotta be kidding me?!?” I pictured myself for a minute at a conference in a room full of people in a fetal position on the floor while vomiting. A little bit of steam escaped sssssssssssshhhhhhhhhit. Then I realized that I can buy it OTC for 10 times the cost. Yippee! After this, Paul and I were invited to lunch with an eccentric elderly couple that we befriended. I was so upset that I didn’t want to go, but when I got there I felt totally at peace. They are a very loving couple with a clean and nicely decorated old house. We ate lunch outside on their patio underneath the grape vines. Paul is going to harvest the grapes and make wine out of them. 

During lunch I mentioned my desire to learn how to shoot a gun. Even though our hostess is in her 80’s she is not a stereotypical woman of her age. She likes to hunt and fish. She showed me her study full of furs she sewed together and spoke of a woman’s survival class where she even learned how to dog sled. She told me that I was the perfect age to start new things. She also mentioned that I should think about joining an elite choir that she is in. I am thinking about doing that with my daughter. We both have a 3 octave range. My daughter is going off to college next year for music. I would love to do something with her before she leaves.  Besides singing in a few weddings, funerals, singing a bit in church, and being involved in community theatre I have not used this gift as much as I would have liked. She also inspired me to do other non traditional things like fix up an old car. 

I have wanted to fix up one of those old hippie vans, I am picturing a robin egg blue VW. It would be awesome taking that on Route 66 tour in vintage clothing. I have auto mechanics in my blood, but being a girl no one ever taught me. Girls didn’t belong in the garage. I love the smell of gasoline and tires, the comforting scents I associated with my family’s garage. My great grandparents started the business and passed it down to their kids. Out of those kids, my dad was the only offspring. He didn’t want to fix cars. He wanted to fix electronics. I want to fix cars, but never learned how. Last week when cleaning out my grandma’s house I found a book on how to fix antique cars. I had to chuckle because the book was older than me. My mom said that I could always take her old MG and fix it up. Maybe that would be a good project to do with my son. This seems like a couch potato to marathon goal for me, but the possibilities are endless. 

My parents sold my grandma’s house today. It makes me so sad to let go of that part of my life forever. It could be worse. I watched my mother’s childhood house burn down when I was 5. A gas station now stands where my husband’s childhood house was. His bedroom was pump number 9. At least a new loving family will have a chance to make memories in grandma’s house. 

I am going to try to relax. It will be nice to learn new things at the conference and visits friends. I am hoping to enjoy some time by the pool as it seems like fall in Texas is warmer than our summers are here. Then come home, do an 18 mile run, plus 18 loads of laundry, and head out for my brother’s wedding. I am excited about the adventures that await. 

Little to no provocation 

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I can feel the gentle, slow downward descent of my mood. My heart in utter despair. I cry with little or no provocation. I haven’t slept for 3 days. It takes forever to fall asleep. I wake in the middle of the night, lying awake for hours. I awake again at the crack of dawn exhausted. I’m not hungry. I can’t eat without acid reflux. I worry about the things I can’t control. I pace the floor. Any attempts to rest or nap leave me frustratingly wide awake. I wouldn’t wish the hormonal fluctuations of a middle aged woman on anyone. 

It was harder this week cleaning out my grandma’s house. The memories some of the items brought back were almost too painful to bear. When I try to reach out to my grandma for comfort, she is not there. What I wouldn’t give to hear her voice again or to even smell the scent of her perfume on her clothes. All I smell is dust and decay. Emptiness. Nothingness. 

It is incredibly stupid to cry over the meaningless little items that I lost. I can mourn over the stupid little stove, but can’t cry over the friends and family that autism cost me and my family? The childhood family vacations with the whole family that never happened? I can’t even remember one time that we went out to eat together as a family. I have to continue to pray for strength to make it through this process of opening myself up to and dealing with unresolved issues. 

I will make it through. I will be ok. 

Windy days

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I hear the wind whistling through every cracked or slightly open vessel. I feel it wind its way deep down into my soul stirring up memories that I long for but are long gone. The wind cries with an urgency that begs for immediate release but when searched for cannot be found. For me the wind cries “grandma.” It transports me back in time to my grandpa’s truck. I sit peacefully between my grandparents with the window behind my head open a crack forever whistling with the wind. Every time the wind blows, I feel a nostalgic longing for them. 

My grandma is the main reason why I survived my childhood.  She also gets a lot of credit for helping Mark through too. She is right up there with Mother Theresa in my blog. Mark and I would take turns staying with my grandparents every other weekend. She did all the little things to make me feel special. We worked on puzzles together, she cooked my favorite meals, she made cookies for me, and she always had time to listen. We always celebrated holidays at their house. One Christmas off to the side was something hidden under a large bag. It was for me. Inside was a dollhouse created partially by grandma using little pearl buttons as light fixtures. She also made doll clothes for me from patterns, struggling to get her big fingers into the little tiny clothes to sew them together. 

Last week while cleaning out my grandma’s house, I found my old dollhouse. Maybe someday I will set it up the way it used to be in its finery. After 6 years of being vacant, someone wants to buy my grandma’s house. My dad never put the house up for sale and it was left as a shrine to her memory. Despite all of his shortcomings, my dad provided loving care for his parents and aunt in their final years. Every time the wind blows, I will be thinking of them and be thankful for the difference they made in my life.