100 When I Was Growing Up Stories
Tale of Two Grandmothers
Prompt #25 Grandparents
My grandfathers died early; my grandmothers lived long. Growing up, visiting either of my grandmothers involved a long and overcrowded car ride. The family car was filled with anticipation on the ride to see my dad’s mother. In contrast, the ride to my maternal grandmother’s house was filled with obligation.
A visit to my mother’s mom entailed a long afternoon of five restless children trying to sit still while the adults visited. Boredom would soon set in, resulting in an elbow shoved into a sibling’s ribs or the muttering of something that you knew would illicit a reaction into a sibling’s ear. The uproar would confirm our grandmother’s belief that we were an ill-mannered lot.
My mother would give us a beseeching look and beg us to settle down. We couldn’t, and we didn’t. We were kids, and we were bored. If we had known how close we were to our other grandmother’s house, we would have led an insurrection demanding to visit her instead.
Love is what I felt as I stepped through the door at my paternal grandmother’s house. Before long, the place was filled with aunts, uncles, and cousins. In the summer, we would take a picnic lunch to the brook and swim. On days when we couldn’t play outside, she would initiate a game of Sorry or dominoes.
A visit was never complete without a game of tag. When you least expected it, my grandmother would reach out her hand, touch one of us, and say, “Tag, you’re it.” She would giggle, watching as we ran around the house chasing each other in a game of tag. I still can hear the sound of her giggle; she had the best giggle.
Neither one of my grandmothers had an easy childhood. However, my dad’s mother could forgive the past and love with a kind and open heart. Her grandchildren were the beneficiaries of her capacity to love.
I believe my other grandmother had closed off her heart in order to survive, given the hand she was dealt. Her mother was committed to the state’s “insane asylum” several times during my grandmother’s childhood. Despite what must have been a tumultuous childhood, she was valedictorian of her high school and college classes. Her grandchildren witnessed what a capable woman could accomplish.
She lived with my parents at the end of her life. When my mother needed a break, I did respite care for her in what turned out to be the final days of her life. There were no end-of-life conversations that week, no passing on of sage advice, no stories of her days as a suffragette fighting for women’s right to vote. She was never able to make a connection with her grandchildren even after we became adults.
I vividly recall the last time I took my young daughters to visit my paternal grandmother. Hooked up to an oxygen tank, she still made sure I took out the toys for my daughters to play with and made them a snack. My grandmother and I talked as the girls played, knowing that there weren’t many of these visits left in our future. She passed on some bits of sage advice on how to hold tight to the things that matter in life.
And then, like in the days of my youth, cousins, aunts, and uncles began trickling into the house. The house filled with laughter and my grandmother’s giggles as we took turns telling stories from our shared past. And then, I walked a little too close to where she sat with her oxygen tank. She reached out, tapped my arm, and said, “Tag, you’re it.” It was the last game of tag that all of us played with our grandmother.
I am grateful for both of my grandmothers. Like my maternal grandmother, I can spend a lot of time in my head analyzing information, and like my paternal grandmother, I love playing with my grandchildren. I see these two parts melding together as my grandchildren have begun asking for my advice on various topics.
One grandmother lived in her head, the other in her heart. I hope that I am a blend of these two lovely beings as I endeavor to remind myself to continually take that eighteen-inch journey from my head to my heart.
With Love & Energy by the Pond,
Laurel
