My Grammie and I ....

My Grammie and I had a very interesting relationship throughout the years. I was always a bit afraid of her. She firmly believed that children should be seen and not heard - so, as long as we weren't noisy I guess she didn't mind being around us. Of course, that meant that we should also spend most of the hours at her house playing outside and remaining out from underfoot.

She definitely preferred the boys - my big brother and my cousin Sam were her two favorites out of all of us. I didn't know my Granddaddy - my brother holds all of his memories - as my Granddaddy was gone by the time I was 2 years old. I must not have been around him that much because I remember my Great-Uncle Charlie and I had to have formed those memories around the same age that my Granddaddy would have still been alive. So, for me, Grammie was always alone. I once asked her why she never remarried after he had died while they were in their 50s and she told me that once you've had the best there is no desire to look elsewhere. My Grammie lived another 50 years after she was left alone. (Yes, she was over 100 and had lived in three centuries when she passed away).

Maybe that's why I've been thinking of her so much recently. My birthday is fast approaching. I'm older than my grandfather was when he passed away. A brain aneurism took him quickly - he never knew what hit him. One moment he was on vacation sitting on the front porch visiting family and the next moment he had keeled over - dead. My big brother adored him - my grandmother adored him - and so did my father - so I guess he was one pretty awesome guy.

So, I am forced to look at my life and think - wow, I could live another 50 years and never be able to experience the love of a good man again. Those kinds of thoughts have to be pushed aside - so that I don't focus on them and become depressed and/or bitter. I have to look at my beautiful children and grandchildren. And, I have to be the kind of Grammie who isn't scary like my old "German bulldog" of a Grammie. She liked me when I was reading poetry or working on genealogy records - other than that I never felt as though I garnished much of her attention.

After all, she is the force who dictated that no one on my father's side of the family would be allowed to attend my wedding in the Catholic church - and they all listened - including my cousins who happened to live in the same city. So, it was monumental when she actually pulled me aside one day and told me that I was "doing it right" in reference to my parenting skills.  I think that is probably the last compliment that I ever received from her - if not the only one that I received during my adult years.

Despite my fear of her, one truly had to admire my Grammie. She was in the first graduating class of the School of Nursing at the University of Cincinnati - and she went back to nursing when my Granddaddy left her alone at a relatively "young" age. When she passed away, even though she had lost her eyesight, my Grammie still had full mental faculties. She had a mind like a steel trap, that never forgot anything. She was once a church organist and she always sang in her church choir - all the way up into her 90s.

She was raised bilingual - with her parents being the ones to come to America in the 1880s.  The only German phrase that I heard growing up and remembered was "Das ist verboten"! (That is forbidden!).  My dad taught me Spanish when I was five years old instead of German.  (He had bad memories of his great-grandmother living with them and hitting him with a cane every time he spoke English in the house - he stopped speaking German when she passed away the year that he was 12 - and then he picked it back up again in his 60s).

What a strange background that I came from. Of course, I was distanced from my Grammie over the years because of my Dad's divorces and remarriages.  My other grandmother had passed away when I was three and a half years old and she left me with many wonderful memories of playtime and cooking time with her. She was a teacher and loved being around children - in fact, I felt as though she totally doted on me and that her love made up for the lack of love that I felt from my Grammie.  Which may make you wonder, why did I decide to be called Grammie by my grandbabies instead of Dear Ma - like my grandmother and my mother chose?

Mainly because, in my mind, there was truly only one Dear Ma in this world.  It blew me away when my mother requested to be called that - it just didn't seem right in my mind (not that I ever went against my mother's request). Also, my mother-in-law was another German Grammie - and she was such a warm, playful, loving grandmother (who never played favorites among her grandchildren) that I wanted to be a lot like her.

My Grammie and I both loved poetry, science, and genealogy. I was told that the reason we probably always butted heads was because we were a lot alike. Personally, I was never sure about that one but I do look like her and I will never forget her great words of wisdom:  "after a good meal, there is always room for cheesecake".