And then there were none

The months of March and April are typically contemplated as a time of rebirth—winter transitions to spring; trees sprout new life; flowers start to bloom; birds, bugs, and critters shake off the effects of the dark, cold months; and we emerge from the shelter of our homes to plant gardens, play tennis, fly kites, and generally revel in the possibilities of another spring and summer—more exercise, great vacations, ice cream, barbeques.

The months of March and April, however, also bring different transitions.  On four occasions over the past 31 years, those months have brought the news that one of my grandparents has passed away.  Today (April 30, 2011), I lost my last grandparent.  Therefore, this blog will stray from the ‘I just moved to Ramallah’ storyline that had been established in order to take a moment to pay tribute to my parents’ parents.

Grandpa N: My father’s father passed away when I was in fourth grade.  My memories of him are driven as much from pictures of him and stories I’ve heard about him as anything else.  I remember that he had ‘his chair’ at his house.  It was a plush brown upholstered chair, as I remember it, and although it was designated for Grandpa, sitting in it did not bring punishment—instead, Grandpa would simply put you on his lap when he was ready to sit down.  I really only have three distinct memories of Grandpa and they are each in their own way a bit sad.  I remember at one of my birthday celebrations, Grandpa stumbled slightly when returning to his seat.  He wasn’t hurt, but it caused enough concern by my Grandma and parents that I, too, became worried about my Grandpa.  I think it was also my first stark realization that we are mortal beings and that age brings frightening realities that rarely occur to a 9 year old.  The second memory was answering the telephone one night when my parents were out.  My Grandma N was calling for my father.  I told her he wasn’t home, so she asked me to have him call her when he returned—Grandpa was sick.  I delivered the news and overheard my parents’ reaction when they called my Grandma to follow-up.  The news, in fact, was that my Grandpa had a stroke and was in the hospital.  He passed away a few weeks later.  My third memory is from his funeral.  It was an open casket funeral, and I remember looking at the body in the casket and not being able to render the tearful sadness that others around me were experiencing.  I tried and tried, but for some reason the tears would not come.  Soon, I was relieved of sitting in the room with the casket and instead was with my siblings and cousins in a different room.  Quickly, we were all laughing about something and generally having a good time.  In the back of my mind, I wondered if it was acceptable to be carrying on like this at a funeral.  Then my father came to check on us and was glad to see that we were having a good time.  “Grandpa would have loved to be here laughing with you; I’m glad you’re having a good time,” he said.

Grandma N:  My father’s mother passed away just days after Pope John Paul II died in April 2005.  Grandma N is a legendary woman.  Grandma lived in a three story house (with two rental units) for nearly 70 years, 25 of those years alone after Grandpa N passed away.  She was active at her church, St. James, kept a large garden, kept tabs on her 11 grandchildren and dozens of other family members and close friends, and hosted Christmas Eve gatherings for 20-odd people well into her 80s, never even considering that she might get tired after being on her feet cooking, serving, and cleaning for 8 or 10 hours.  Apart from Christmas Eve, growing up I was guaranteed to spend at least two days a year at Grandma’s house.  Each spring and fall, my father and I (and oftentimes, Uncle Red) would go to Grandma N’s house early on a Saturday morning for “Screens and Storms.”  My Grandmother’s house was built early in the 20^th century and did not have many of the modern conveniences of new constructions.  In particular, the windows could accommodate either screens or storm windows, but not both.  In the cold winters, the storm windows help insulate against the cold weather and gusting north winds; during the hot summers, the screen windows allow for a fresh breeze to blow through the house without inviting in mosquitoes or other unwanted guests.  So, we would switch the configurations of each of the windows in the house and at the same time take a moment to clean the windows inside and out.  If there were fixes to make in the rental units, my father would tackle them at the same time.  Sometimes, during the fall screens and storms day, nearby Camp Randall would be hosting a Badger football game, and we could hear the 85,000 fans cheering every good play.  After finishing with the windows and other tasks, Grandma would serve us lunch.  And just before we left, Grandma would slip me a few dollars for my time.  Especially when I was in college, the meal and the money were a nice bonus on top of spending time with my father and grandmother.

Pop: My mother’s father passed away in March 2009 just as I was preparing to leave on a business trip to Jordan.  I held back tears on several occasions during that trip and knew that if I started to mention to my colleagues that my grandfather had just passed away, that I would fall apart—so I stayed quiet about it and excused myself from meetings when I felt my emotions getting away from me.  Pop was a wonderful man—he was funny, generous, irreverent, curious, kind, smart, and loving.  I have thousands of wonderful memories of Pop, so it’s difficult to narrow him down to a short blog entry.  He was a voracious reader and while I was serving in Peace Corps, he would clip articles from the newspaper that he read and thought would interest me.  He was an excellent pool player, and when he was in his mid 80s he met me and my friend, Dean, at a nearby billiards hall.  Dean belonged to a pool league and considered himself to be a good shot.  I gladly took a seat and watched the two of them play a few games.  Pop beat Dean each time, hobbling around the table on unsteady legs but still able to steady his shot and sink the ball with the touch that comes from growing up in the pool hall that his father owned.  Many years earlier, Pop, who was a bicyclist with a sticker on his bike that said, “Powered by Ole” (Ole was one of his nicknames) loaded his and a bike for my cousin Julie in his car and drove a few blocks from my parents’ house.  Then he and Julie finished the final two blocks of the journey on bike, claiming that they had in fact biked the entire 6 miles from his house to my parents’ house.  (Julie was probably no older than 12 and my grandfather was nearing 80; so it would not have been an impossible feat, but it would have been quite impressive.)  Late in life, Pop had a hard time with recent memories, but his long-term memory stayed strong and he loved to tell stories.  I remember one time in particular later in his life when he regaled me with stories that I had heard before but loved hearing again.  (My grandmother had heard the stories many more times than me and made her displeasure with the retelling known to me by rolling her eyes dramatically in the background.)  Soon, somehow, we transitioned from stories of his youth to the sitcom, Seinfeld, which he liked watching late at night, and I remember thinking how cool it was that my 90-some year old grandfather and I were sitting there riffing on Seinfeld.  At some point during that conversation, Pop’s age came up—he must have been around 95 years old.  He seemed truly astonished at this news, although it could have been the jokester in him, too, mocking surprise that he had lived nearly a century.  Either way, I remember him as always being young at heart and full of life.

G'ma O: My mother’s mother passed away earlier today.  I spent more time with her than any of my other grandparents, although that means that many of my memories of her are of helping with fairly routine daily tasks—driving her to the bank or pharmacy; helping her take out the garbage or move a box from one place to another; hanging a picture on her wall or watering the plants and trimming the shrubs.  One distinct memory that her and I often talked about over the years comes from my youth when I was learning to play the trumpet.  Grandma O was an excellent musician—she played piano with a natural, jazzy ease and she loved to perform.  So as I struggled to learn to play the trumpet, she was very encouraging.  One day, she decided that she would accompany me on a tune that I was learning and she knew well—Basin Street Blues.  Unfortunately, her natural ability to ad lib and jazz up a song conflicted with my strict interpretation of the written music and we were not able to find common ground on the song.  Over the following decades, though, I was more than content to listen to her play the piano.  Grandma loved playing and performing at family gatherings and seemed to relish her ability to make us dance to her music and applaud once she finished a tune.  My last visit with Grandma came over the Christmas holiday.  I found Grandma parked in her wheelchair in front of the television— “It’s a Wonderful Life” was playing.  I sat next to her and greeted her very deliberately so she could hear me over the television.  She gave me a friendly response, but obviously didn’t recognize me.  It took some time for me to explain exactly who I was, but once it sunk in, she was very happy to learn that I was part of her family.  My wife was also there, and Grandma was equally happy to ‘meet’ my wife and learn that we were married.  She asked if I knew her mother, and when I said I didn’t, she invited me to go visit her some time and mentioned that even she hadn’t seen her mother in a while.  We sat with her for an hour or so until she was taken to eat lunch.  I bid her farewell and she again reiterated how pleased she was to see me, and then she said that she would never forget meeting me.  I would like to think that was true; I know I certainly won’t forget her.