I recently posted on Facebook,
When I think of Billy Graham, I remember walking over to Grandma's house, opening the back door and walking past the washing-up sink with a water dipper, into the kitchen where the smell of molasses cookies and freshly baked bread lived, through the dining room with the treadle sewing machine, all the way into the living room where on the console television in the corner we would listen to a man talk about God's love, while Grandma sat next to her piano with the hymnal on it and I sat next to a table with a Bible, feeling loved.
. . . and realized that was only half of the story of growing up with grandmas.
The grandma I described in the previous passage was my father's mother. She had five kids; my father was number four. Her husband, my grandpa, died when I was ten. The only memory of him I have is when I was five and sleeping on the davenport, as Grandma called it, in their dining room, because it was the night my youngest sister was being born. I remember Grandpa getting up early to tend to farming chores. It seems like he was wearing a flannel night shirt as he hurried to get dressed in the cold house in the midst of a Michigan January. I pretended to be asleep, but cuddled among the quilts Grandma most likely had made out of her old house dresses, I soon was asleep, warm and safe in one of my favorite places.
The other half of the story is the part about my other grandma, my mother's mother. She, too, was the mother of five kids; my mother was number two. Her husband, my grandpa, also died when I was ten. I have two memories of him: the first was when he would bounce me on his knee singing a song about a happy hippo, and second, when I would see him being helped down the hallway of their big, old farmhouse, where he would find his bed and sleep it off. No one spoke about why he needed help walking or why he had to take so many naps. He was gone before I knew him. I remember walking out into the dining room of our house one morning with my mother holding my sister, crying, and telling me that Grandpa had died. I was not as sad as I was jealous that my mother was holding my sister and not me. I always felt that I needed to be held more than I ever actually was, but being the practical people we were, the chores that needed to be done always took priority over real or perceived emotional needs.
My other grandma did not watch Billy Graham on television, worked in a canning factory and did not do much baking, did not know how to sew or play the piano, and most likely did not spend much time reading the Bible. This was the Grandma who would teach me how to play rummy and we would play cards while she filled up a small cup for me with cream and sugar, adding just enough coffee to create a beautiful caramel color. I would gratefully sip on the warm treat and when I was finished she would offer me coffee candy. It would not take long before I was addicted to caffeine, at the ripe old age of six or seven, an addiction I have had ever since, not to mention tooth decay from all of the sugar that would wreak havoc on my chalk-like teeth.
This was the grandma who would let me roast marshmallows over the burner of her stove so we could make s'mores, which may not have been the best decision, but I do not recall ever getting burned, though sometimes the marshmallows did. Years into the future she would invite me to share in the mysterious concoctions that would be poured from the blender on Christmas as everyone got happier and I naively wondered why--why they were getting happier and why someone not of age was being invited to share in the merriment. Fortunately, that was an addiction I flirted with briefly in college, but it would not take hold and define my life.
That grandma would like to say, "ooh-la-la" and attribute that to being part French, which I never would have believed until it was recently confirmed on a DNA test I took: French, German, Scottish, Irish, British--100 percent European ancestry. I knew all was true except for the French and somehow felt slightly more exotic and glamorous after that. Maybe that is why I wanted to study French and ended up with a French minor, becoming semi-fluent for awhile. It was in my DNA.
Both grandmas went to church. The one who listened to Billy Graham took me to her small community church once in awhile where we would sing hymns and I would wonder what it meant to be saved. Before that she was part of the Brethren Church. She asked me before I went to college how I would treat a roommate if that roommate happened to be black. We only knew of one black family in our township and they seemed the same as everyone else in that small, rural community so even though I did not know the answer to her question, I said I guessed I would treat her just like anyone else. Grandma said yes, that is exactly what I should do. She is the only one who ever addressed the issue.
The coffee-drinking grandma had converted to Catholicism in order to marry Grandpa, just like my father converted in order to marry my mother, making me only part Catholic, though it had a major influence on my thinking, and probably still does. This grandma did not talk about her faith, but many Catholics I knew did not talk about theirs either. It was a given that one went to church for no one wanted to face an eternity in hell for missing mass. The ten commandments were pretty straightforward, though we all knew when we were looking at the prayer cards before making our confessions that there was no way we were going into that dark little booth and not have something to tell the priest. None of us could ever measure up and that was why we needed the priest to intercede for us. Maybe just maybe, if we recited the prayers just right, and never dropped a communion wafer on the floor, and didn't pinch our sister too much in church or actually laugh out loud, we could make it to purgatory and hope that someone in time would pray us out so we could go on to our final reward. There was a lot of pressure in being Catholic. And seeing that gigantic crucifix with the larger-than-life Jesus staring down at me every week certainly did not help.
Both grandmas would lose their husbands while they were still somewhat young, but only my mother's mother would remarry when I was 13 and I would get to wear my long green dress to their wedding. Afterward we had lunch with the priest and Grandma and my new Grandpa got to go on about their lives in a different house than the farmhouse, and spend time in their camper like the time they took a trip out West. Grandma soon discovered, however, she did not enjoy camping nearly as much as Grandpa. When I brought my fiance to meet the family at Grandma's birthday party, Grandpa pulled me aside to give me all kinds of marriage advice. Tell him you love him every day and show him, he said. He went on with instructions for how I could be the best wife possible. I would find out later he had advice for my husband-to-be as well. Be patient, was all he said.
I would not be the woman I am today were it not for both of my grandmas. The quilt-making, bread-baking, hymn-singing, listener of Billy Graham grandma along with the coffee-drinking, card-playing, somewhat French, Catholic grandma both taught me a lot about faith, love, and living life to the full. Both suffered great loss, endured hardship, loved their families and lived into their 80s.
Today I sew all kinds of things, love to bake and have even come up with a version of my own molasses cookie, drink coffee with cream or black--no sugar please, and have an enduring faith that allows me to love God and try to treat everyone with respect. I hope someday to be the kind of grandma I was blessed enough to have and to pass along all I have learned. Well, maybe not all.
When I think of Billy Graham, I remember walking over to Grandma's house, opening the back door and walking past the washing-up sink with a water dipper, into the kitchen where the smell of molasses cookies and freshly baked bread lived, through the dining room with the treadle sewing machine, all the way into the living room where on the console television in the corner we would listen to a man talk about God's love, while Grandma sat next to her piano with the hymnal on it and I sat next to a table with a Bible, feeling loved.
. . . and realized that was only half of the story of growing up with grandmas.
The grandma I described in the previous passage was my father's mother. She had five kids; my father was number four. Her husband, my grandpa, died when I was ten. The only memory of him I have is when I was five and sleeping on the davenport, as Grandma called it, in their dining room, because it was the night my youngest sister was being born. I remember Grandpa getting up early to tend to farming chores. It seems like he was wearing a flannel night shirt as he hurried to get dressed in the cold house in the midst of a Michigan January. I pretended to be asleep, but cuddled among the quilts Grandma most likely had made out of her old house dresses, I soon was asleep, warm and safe in one of my favorite places.
The other half of the story is the part about my other grandma, my mother's mother. She, too, was the mother of five kids; my mother was number two. Her husband, my grandpa, also died when I was ten. I have two memories of him: the first was when he would bounce me on his knee singing a song about a happy hippo, and second, when I would see him being helped down the hallway of their big, old farmhouse, where he would find his bed and sleep it off. No one spoke about why he needed help walking or why he had to take so many naps. He was gone before I knew him. I remember walking out into the dining room of our house one morning with my mother holding my sister, crying, and telling me that Grandpa had died. I was not as sad as I was jealous that my mother was holding my sister and not me. I always felt that I needed to be held more than I ever actually was, but being the practical people we were, the chores that needed to be done always took priority over real or perceived emotional needs.
My other grandma did not watch Billy Graham on television, worked in a canning factory and did not do much baking, did not know how to sew or play the piano, and most likely did not spend much time reading the Bible. This was the Grandma who would teach me how to play rummy and we would play cards while she filled up a small cup for me with cream and sugar, adding just enough coffee to create a beautiful caramel color. I would gratefully sip on the warm treat and when I was finished she would offer me coffee candy. It would not take long before I was addicted to caffeine, at the ripe old age of six or seven, an addiction I have had ever since, not to mention tooth decay from all of the sugar that would wreak havoc on my chalk-like teeth.
This was the grandma who would let me roast marshmallows over the burner of her stove so we could make s'mores, which may not have been the best decision, but I do not recall ever getting burned, though sometimes the marshmallows did. Years into the future she would invite me to share in the mysterious concoctions that would be poured from the blender on Christmas as everyone got happier and I naively wondered why--why they were getting happier and why someone not of age was being invited to share in the merriment. Fortunately, that was an addiction I flirted with briefly in college, but it would not take hold and define my life.
That grandma would like to say, "ooh-la-la" and attribute that to being part French, which I never would have believed until it was recently confirmed on a DNA test I took: French, German, Scottish, Irish, British--100 percent European ancestry. I knew all was true except for the French and somehow felt slightly more exotic and glamorous after that. Maybe that is why I wanted to study French and ended up with a French minor, becoming semi-fluent for awhile. It was in my DNA.
Both grandmas went to church. The one who listened to Billy Graham took me to her small community church once in awhile where we would sing hymns and I would wonder what it meant to be saved. Before that she was part of the Brethren Church. She asked me before I went to college how I would treat a roommate if that roommate happened to be black. We only knew of one black family in our township and they seemed the same as everyone else in that small, rural community so even though I did not know the answer to her question, I said I guessed I would treat her just like anyone else. Grandma said yes, that is exactly what I should do. She is the only one who ever addressed the issue.
The coffee-drinking grandma had converted to Catholicism in order to marry Grandpa, just like my father converted in order to marry my mother, making me only part Catholic, though it had a major influence on my thinking, and probably still does. This grandma did not talk about her faith, but many Catholics I knew did not talk about theirs either. It was a given that one went to church for no one wanted to face an eternity in hell for missing mass. The ten commandments were pretty straightforward, though we all knew when we were looking at the prayer cards before making our confessions that there was no way we were going into that dark little booth and not have something to tell the priest. None of us could ever measure up and that was why we needed the priest to intercede for us. Maybe just maybe, if we recited the prayers just right, and never dropped a communion wafer on the floor, and didn't pinch our sister too much in church or actually laugh out loud, we could make it to purgatory and hope that someone in time would pray us out so we could go on to our final reward. There was a lot of pressure in being Catholic. And seeing that gigantic crucifix with the larger-than-life Jesus staring down at me every week certainly did not help.
Both grandmas would lose their husbands while they were still somewhat young, but only my mother's mother would remarry when I was 13 and I would get to wear my long green dress to their wedding. Afterward we had lunch with the priest and Grandma and my new Grandpa got to go on about their lives in a different house than the farmhouse, and spend time in their camper like the time they took a trip out West. Grandma soon discovered, however, she did not enjoy camping nearly as much as Grandpa. When I brought my fiance to meet the family at Grandma's birthday party, Grandpa pulled me aside to give me all kinds of marriage advice. Tell him you love him every day and show him, he said. He went on with instructions for how I could be the best wife possible. I would find out later he had advice for my husband-to-be as well. Be patient, was all he said.
I would not be the woman I am today were it not for both of my grandmas. The quilt-making, bread-baking, hymn-singing, listener of Billy Graham grandma along with the coffee-drinking, card-playing, somewhat French, Catholic grandma both taught me a lot about faith, love, and living life to the full. Both suffered great loss, endured hardship, loved their families and lived into their 80s.
Today I sew all kinds of things, love to bake and have even come up with a version of my own molasses cookie, drink coffee with cream or black--no sugar please, and have an enduring faith that allows me to love God and try to treat everyone with respect. I hope someday to be the kind of grandma I was blessed enough to have and to pass along all I have learned. Well, maybe not all.
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