A Grandmother I knew – only in appearance

A Grandmother I knew – only in appearance

Many people have memory of a person they knew, yet never got to know. I had two grandmothers, maternal and paternal. My maternal grandmother was everything you could want or desire from a grandma. Fun, loving, attentive, kind and always exciting, though at times, I wondered which of us the kid at play was and she was the grandma of my heart. 

My paternal grandmother was the opposite, distant, cold, and withholding of any type of affection towards me. It is unique I suppose when the engagements between you and a grandmother in the way of speaking to each other, are fewer than the fingers on your hands. She would make me feel cold inside when I was around her, a sensing I was tolerated but not accepted. Two decades after she died I heard a co-worker use the phrase “red-headed step child” in reference to the separation between our office and the home office and in that instant it reminded me of my grandmother, thinking that is how I felt – a red-headed step child. It was a not a matter of being the youngest or oldest grandchild, I was neither. It was not a matter of her inability to shower attention and love on grandchildren; I witnessed it with cousins and my own siblings, though for me this was never allowed to be felt. 

I remember one Christmas when I was young we traveled to my grandparents house for Christmas. My grandmother was very good at creating with her hands, whether sewing, crocheting, and cooking, etc., she had the talent. Items hung on the walls of my grandparent’s general store in the Ozarks that she would sew for children, dresses, sweaters, and other items for the home. On this Christmas, she handed me a package and walked away, it was a pair of slippers, which I loved though she was unresponsive in allowing me to let her know. A few years later on another trip to their home, I remember asking her for a sandwich, my mother was there so I felt safe. She just looked at me and told me she did not intend to give me a sandwich of anything else. I just walked away and entered the store, telling my dad and grandpa of what she had said. My grandpa walked over to the cooler, pulled out a package of lunchmeat, and handed it to me, telling me to open it and eat all I wanted – and I did. Grandpa was enough love for both of them and he did it very well. When I was 12, we paid another visit to my grandparents. Through the years, I had learned the best approach was no approach. A bond did not exist, or was ever formed in her life with me. On this visit, she asked me to take a walk – she wanted to talk to me. I hesitated, though my dad said to go ahead with her request and before leaving the house, she grabbed the shovel from the corner. I could only think “oh great! What is she going to do with that!” she explained that many snakes ,crawled the ground in the area and she would be prepared to take their heads. On occasion in life, she had done just that. On this walk and talk, she never spoke and once again, we returned to silence between us. By the time, I was 19 and pregnant with my first daughter; my dad had relocated his parents to be closer so he could take care of them. In early October in 1975, she asked if I would come to lunch with her and grandpa after the appointment, she wanted to talk to me. Their apartment was across the street from my doctor’s office and I agreed. For the first time in my life during the lunch, she seemed to be a different person, and actually smiled that day. Though the talk never really happened again, outside of commenting on the food before I left. Before October 1975, slipped into history – so did my grandmother from this world. 

A grandmother who more than once wanted to talk to me and the words never came. The smile and a bit of laughter at the last lunch were as close to remembering affection from her in this life that can be recalled.

Over the years of my younger life, I would ask my dad many times what was wrong with grandma and why she could not be nice. He would just reply with “don’t worry honey, I love you.” I asked him if that meant she did not and he would tell me “no, she loves you in her own way, she just shows if different to you,” not at all was closer to the truth would be my thought to that statement. When she died my dad and I were walking into the visitation and he stopped and looked at me, then said “honey, I need you to be my rock right now – do you think you can do that?” Without any bond between her and me in life, it was not a difficult task to honor for my dad. Oddly, to myself, no tears ever fell from me when she died or have they since in relation to her death. Remembering times years ago, tears would fall from the “why” of it all when I thought about her or how she could reject a child and accept so many others. 

I have my answers now and the peace of understanding the grandmother I never knew. Her distance was not about me, only focused at me. She was not intentionally cold – only lacked the ability to know how to express or wondered if she could. She gave birth in life to 10 children, only one remains in this world with the rest circled with her now. Questions are now few and understanding is respected and no longer judged. I do not miss the woman I knew on this Earth, I do respect the energy of my grandmother now in a way I never knew. Life is a cycle of repetition with endings and new beginnings if we see the light of another. Both my grandmothers are lights in my life, guiding forces of love, more than I ever knew.