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- Jul 6, 2010
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- Broken beyond repair but highly affable
My nonagenarian maternal grandmother passed away last night. She was/is/always will be my best buddy. As long as I live I will remember the summers spent at the homestead, sleeping over, mowing the lawn for $5, messing around in the old workshed/garage and riding my bike around rural Caldwell, Idaho behind Lake Lowell.
The last time I saw her was at Christmas, gathered at my aunt's home. She had a walker after falling a few times but I was not prepared to see the big black eye she got from one of them. The best I could make of the situation was to kid her that she should not fight in the schoolyard anymore as the other girls were too mean...man it hurt to see the woman who raised six boys and girls to adulthood and in turn was the only reason I am alive in such a state. The beautiful lilting voice that raised in curiousity and motherly love to comfort and cheer us on was subdued now but it was the same grandma who always loved us and the life that flowed onward and grew in numbers every time the whole family would gather for the holidays.
All for the love of Grandma and Grandpa. And the love of her mother and father before her. While grandpa had passed on some 35 years earlier you could still feel his presense in her spirit. It's harder to recall his voice but I can still recall the old house at the dairy and watching the milkings...before his health gave out and forced him to retire and he spent the rest of his life traveling with grandma.
They went many places in those days, from Lake Havasu, Arizona to the Alaska Highway, in a Dodge van chassis Sportsmen RV, one I hung out in quite a lot after he was gone. One time I went to Cascade Lake with the two of them and we fished (well, I TRIED...I never was very good at fishing).
Then one day, at the home they rebuilt on Locust Lane, near the intersection of a thoroughly misnamed crossroad called COOL ROAD, according to her story, while in the bathroom cleaning her teeth she heard a big THUD, and that was it for grandpa, lying in those trademark overalls, no longer in need of all the bottles of pills always in the cabinet above the his and her Chopper Hoppers.
Now grandma had been through some real adventures and close brushes before...one time the family Studebaker was involved in an accident at a reservoir and she was ejected, almost made it in the drink near the Glory Hole! Years later with a boyfriend who rolled a VW bus the scenario was too similar for her and she decided that life was safer single.
I recall that I was unhappy when it was time to move her off the family homestead and into town...I used to be upset with an uncle over it but I realized that it was for her own good, time to move on to where she was better cared for and didn't need a car. Most of my family members outside my mother and sibling probably haven't heard of one of the last times she drove me back to her house when I was without a home in the town I've lived in for nearly thirty years. She took the corners around the tavern behind the wildlife refuge at Lake Lowell and used both sides of the road. I didn't have fingernails to dig into the dash and what a ride!
As much as I miss the old homestead and the great times I had, alone and with my siblings and relatives, I am grateful that she always had a good place to live and was always cared for and loved. My mother tried hard to take care of her when she started to forget to take her medicines and was getting up early in the mornings...I kidded mom that she WAS a dairy farmer's wife and those were NORMAL hours for them!
Mother perservered as long as she could before placing her in a personal care home (not a nursing home, more like an adult foster home) and I saw the toll and sadness it put upon my mother, and it saddened me a lot. I had just lost my father to lung cancer in December of 2011.
Now we are all getting older, no youth left to savor but in memories, sweet but obscure, except in the hearts of the children we gave to her, our gift of love and eternal continuance, which too shall pass on individually but rekindled in future generations.
And so her love will endure and be remembered for as long as the family lives.
The last time I saw her was at Christmas, gathered at my aunt's home. She had a walker after falling a few times but I was not prepared to see the big black eye she got from one of them. The best I could make of the situation was to kid her that she should not fight in the schoolyard anymore as the other girls were too mean...man it hurt to see the woman who raised six boys and girls to adulthood and in turn was the only reason I am alive in such a state. The beautiful lilting voice that raised in curiousity and motherly love to comfort and cheer us on was subdued now but it was the same grandma who always loved us and the life that flowed onward and grew in numbers every time the whole family would gather for the holidays.
All for the love of Grandma and Grandpa. And the love of her mother and father before her. While grandpa had passed on some 35 years earlier you could still feel his presense in her spirit. It's harder to recall his voice but I can still recall the old house at the dairy and watching the milkings...before his health gave out and forced him to retire and he spent the rest of his life traveling with grandma.
They went many places in those days, from Lake Havasu, Arizona to the Alaska Highway, in a Dodge van chassis Sportsmen RV, one I hung out in quite a lot after he was gone. One time I went to Cascade Lake with the two of them and we fished (well, I TRIED...I never was very good at fishing).
Then one day, at the home they rebuilt on Locust Lane, near the intersection of a thoroughly misnamed crossroad called COOL ROAD, according to her story, while in the bathroom cleaning her teeth she heard a big THUD, and that was it for grandpa, lying in those trademark overalls, no longer in need of all the bottles of pills always in the cabinet above the his and her Chopper Hoppers.
Now grandma had been through some real adventures and close brushes before...one time the family Studebaker was involved in an accident at a reservoir and she was ejected, almost made it in the drink near the Glory Hole! Years later with a boyfriend who rolled a VW bus the scenario was too similar for her and she decided that life was safer single.
I recall that I was unhappy when it was time to move her off the family homestead and into town...I used to be upset with an uncle over it but I realized that it was for her own good, time to move on to where she was better cared for and didn't need a car. Most of my family members outside my mother and sibling probably haven't heard of one of the last times she drove me back to her house when I was without a home in the town I've lived in for nearly thirty years. She took the corners around the tavern behind the wildlife refuge at Lake Lowell and used both sides of the road. I didn't have fingernails to dig into the dash and what a ride!
As much as I miss the old homestead and the great times I had, alone and with my siblings and relatives, I am grateful that she always had a good place to live and was always cared for and loved. My mother tried hard to take care of her when she started to forget to take her medicines and was getting up early in the mornings...I kidded mom that she WAS a dairy farmer's wife and those were NORMAL hours for them!
Mother perservered as long as she could before placing her in a personal care home (not a nursing home, more like an adult foster home) and I saw the toll and sadness it put upon my mother, and it saddened me a lot. I had just lost my father to lung cancer in December of 2011.
Now we are all getting older, no youth left to savor but in memories, sweet but obscure, except in the hearts of the children we gave to her, our gift of love and eternal continuance, which too shall pass on individually but rekindled in future generations.
And so her love will endure and be remembered for as long as the family lives.
