As Hell's hurricane of familial dysfunction and chaos whirled around in my childhood, I am grateful for my grandparents who were my "eye of the storm."
Constant--stable--present–calm.
Though not perfect, they showed up with love.
They were a refuge from the whirling, unpredictable storm at home.
My grandmother passed away last month and I have been reflecting on the impact she and my grandfather had on my life. Lots of tears have fallen from my eyes, but I am so grateful for my grandparents. When others chose not to be present in my youth, my grandma and grandpa showed up on life-changing, difficult days and mundane days too. Some of those days included:
9th grade grandparent’s day in Utah...my grandparents arrived in Utah from Montana for this day. They came from thousands of miles away to be there for me. My teacher, Mrs. Springer, loved my grandparents' stories so much, she had them back a second day...
At my high school graduation, my grandparents cheered from the crowd…
At my dad’s funeral, holding me as I cried…
My wedding day, my grandma showed up alone from Mexico to support me and Steve (my grandpa had passed away 5 years earlier). It meant so much to have her there at that time...
She made an impact on my children--she loved them, held them, and listened to hours of video calls with them where they shared this and that with great-grandma...
Tender, but treasured, are these gifts of time she gave to me and my family.
I spent many holidays with my grandparents:
My 4th birthday we celebrated at their home. My grandpa told me it was ok to poke my cake--repeatedly--to taste-test it--which infuriated my grandma. She and my grandpa bought me a purple track suit, a ninja turtle shirt, and a barbie. I was most excited for the ninja turtle shirt. :)
Christmas at the cabin on Little Bitterroot Lake in Montana and in Cut Bank where I dressed as the angel for the nativity and made Christmas cookies with my grandma...
A birthday dinner by Lake McDonald watching the sunset...and so many other memories and adventures.
Over the years, I have realized that almost all of my happy memories from my childhood came when I was with my grandparents...
My wanderlust for traveling is inspired by my Grandparents. I touched the ocean for the first time with them in Ocean Shores, Washington. My family traveled back there a few years ago and it was the first place my then 6 year old and 2 year old touched the ocean for the first time.
On another trip, my friend, Danielle, and I explored the coasts of Oregon with my grandparents where we spent time with my grandma’s siblings. I took a picture there of my grandma’s brother who was laughing so hard in the photo with the background of a beautiful lake. The trip my grandma took me on connected me to something I love to do--photography--catching moments of precious, fleeting time.
On that trip to the Oregon Coast, we were playing card games our first night in the cabin. All of a sudden a bat swooped down from the rafters of the cabin. I will never forget my grandma, screaming bloody murder as she threw her cards into the air, running to her room, with her hands covering her head in fear of the winged creature. When her brother, Ray, knocked on the door and asked her to come out she screeched, “Never! I am going to stay here forever!”
Last week we randomly had a bat–yes a bat–make its home right by our front door in New Mexico. It was so random and, after my initial surprise, it made me laugh because it reminded me of my grandma.
On each trip my grandparents went on themselves, they would send me a postcard from their adventure. They remembered me. I saved the postcards and dreamed of the places they were exploring. The summer I worked in Alaska I found the exact same postcard they sent me years before when they visited Alaska. I bought one of those very same postcards and sent it back to my grandparents. It is a blessing to be remembered.
I learned to love the outdoors at their cabin on Bitterroot Lake. We spent many hours driving and exploring Glacier National Park, watching for bighorn sheep, which my grandfather loved to see. Next weekend we will bury my grandma's cremated remains near Glacier. I hope, while I visit, I can see a bighorn sheep.
Each grandchild of my grandparents was loved, noticed, and remembered. I can definitely say with as much conviction as any of my siblings or cousins that I was their favorite. :) And they could say the same thing–that’s how my grandma and grandpa treated us, they loved us, they noticed us, and we mattered to them.
My grandparents once took all 9 of us grandchildren in a motorhome on a trip where my grandma taught us all how to play poker with M&M's. My grandma would get the strangest looks at the gas station when she'd buy 9 bags of M&M's and tell the gas station attendant she was educating her grandkids. :)
Speaking of education, my grandma was determined to finish her schooling, completing high school at age 28, and in her 50's she completed her bachelor's degree, grandkids cheering HER on this time.
One more education story–remember the time my grandma got kicked out of band in high school for placing bets on the teacher? You don't?? Well, let me tell you about it. :) This is what my grandma told me:
The teacher of the high school band class was a heavy-set man. As he conducted the music during the class, he would begin to sweat from his animated conducting gestures. As he sweat, he would get a little sweat bubble under the bridge of his glasses and his glasses would slide down to the tip of his nose. No conductor has time to set down their baton to push their glasses back up with their finger, so this teacher would use the end of his baton to push his glasses back up.
Enter bored, high schooler, Jeanette, who zeroed in on this poor teacher pushing his glasses back up his nose with the end of his baton. What did she do? Well, capitalize on it of course! She decided to start a bet with other classmates each day–whoever guessed the closest number of times the teacher pushed his glasses up his nose with the end of his baton got that day’s pot of money.
Needless to say, at times, the betting hype would cause "slight" disruptions in the class. 44 times. 45 times. 46. “Ahhhh, dangit,” cried the drummer because his number was 45 and there was still 10 minutes of class to go. The teacher would stop and ask the drummer, “Why did you say that? What’s wrong?” The drummer’s face would go bright red. “Nothing,” he’d say as he hyper-focused intently on the fermata in measure 9 of his music, “We’re good.” This would continue until the end of class, with occasional outbursts of frustration at not winning. 57 times. 58. Diiiiiinnnnngggg. “Woot!” The trumpeter would exclaim, realizing she just won the daily loot of a few dollars, and my grandma would have to pay out the betting pot to the trumpeter.
This went on for quite some time until the teacher caught wind of it. This resulted in a series of detentions for my grandma and she got kicked out of band class.
My first big international trip was at 19 to see my grandparents in Chapala, Mexico.
On my first trip to Mexico I sat by the lake close by their house. I was reading a book and my grandma was working on a crossword puzzle. A Mexican man in his mid-20's came riding up to us on a horse. He said hola and then asked if I was, “Americana?” "Yes," I replied. Then he asked if I had a boyfriend, “?Tienes un novio?” My grandma turned mama bear, she stood up, and all 5 feet and some inches of her squared off to this rather tall Mexican man and blurted out, “Yes, she DOES has a boyfriend, and he is right over there–she said pointing to a flea market in the midst of trade, “and if you don’t leave her alone right now, I will go get him!!” There was, of course, no boyfriend over at the tienda but that didn’t matter. What mattered was Grandma had my back!
One warm December night close to Christmas, after having attended an activity, my grandparents and I were walking to their home in Chapala. As we traveled slowly over the cobblestone streets, we paused to watch a large group of people holding lit candles, gathered around a closed door of a home. They began singing a call and response song where those outside the home would sing a few lines and people inside the home would respond. I asked my grandma what the people were doing. She said they were participating in a “posada” and explained that it was a reenactment of The Nativity Story. The people outside the home represented Mary and Joseph seeking a place of rest. The people inside the home represented the innkeeper. The posada ends when the innkeeper welcomes the people representing Mary and Joseph (and everyone else outside) into their home for a fiesta. The lit candles were symbols of an invitation to join in the festivities when the door was opened. Only those with lit candles were able to pass into the party.
I watched, mesmerized by a culture that I’ve grown to love.
Someone my grandma knew saw us watching the posada and came over to us with unlit candles. He handed us each a candle and proceeded to light our candles with his own. As the posada call and response song ended, the door to the home opened and those outside with lit candles began entering the home. Passerbys without candles continued along their way. My grandma’s friend did not have to share his light, but because he did we were welcome to join the party. We had a place in their home for the evening. Inside their home, we rested and participated in an event that is now a cherished memory.
The last few months before my grandma passed I video chatted with her frequently. I also chatted through messenger with her. Here is a snippet of my last written conversation I had with her:
I did call her that next morning. It was the last time I spoke to my grandma. She died July 3. During my last visit with her, I got to tell her I would see her soon and that I loved her.
I think God has been merciful to me the last little while, letting me know her time to pass was coming. My sister, Esther, and I tried at the beginning of the year to get my grandma to share her memories, wisdom, and experiences with us. Our initial idea was to have weekly chats where we planned to record her stories and have a chance to talk to her. At first my grandma agreed to do the visits consistently but she pulled out even before our first chat saying she was too sad with so many friends recently passing away. How I wish we could have had those consistent chats but I still talked to her frequently the last year.
The tears have been many. It is hard to say goodbye to someone who has been with you your whole life. Someone who was constant and present. I've experienced many types of grief--though many aspects of the loss of my grandma are the same as other losses I have been through--this feels different as well.
I've learned to sit with grief and honor its teachings, and I still have a lot to learn. In recent years, I've received comfort from this quote about grief: "Grief, I've learned, is really just love. It's all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love, with no place to go" --Jamie Anderson.
In the future, when I feel the grief settling in, I hope I can also feel the love of my grandma. I'll cuddle up on rainy days in the Mexican blanket she gave me and Steve for our wedding. I'll make her favorite food for my family, visit new and adventurous places and send someone a postcard from there, because, thanks to my grandma (and grandpa), I know what it feels like to be remembered.
