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Friday, April 6, 2007

Good Friday and memories

My sister posted on her blog this morning about our great-grandmother. She passed away on a Good Friday (which happened to be April 9th that year), 13 years ago. I was 16, my sister was 8 and my great-grandmother had turned 87 exactly one month before. Since my sister was too young to really know her, I told her I'd post some of the things I remember.

She always wore a dress and nylons. The kind of dresses that had no shape...just had a collar and sleeves and the rest just fell to below the knees. She always bought me what I really wanted for my birthday (usually a cabbage patch doll). She had a ton of really cool tea cups and we'd have tea quite often. Her favourite show on TV was The Littlest Hobo.

I was the only great-grand child (or grand child for that matter) who visited her on a weekly basis. I would go over there and we would watch TV and she would feed me junk (I remember she always had cans of pop in the fridge which was soooo cool because we never had cans of pop at home). She always baked her own bread which she would end up laying on a sheet in a guest bedroom. I never liked her bread, but wouldn't dare tell her that. She always had jell-o in the fridge too... I don't think she ever actually ate it... she would make it for me to eat.

She had the coolest basement ever. It was unfinished and was essentially one whole room with the center supports making it look like a donut. She had really old fashioned cupboards and kitchen supplies down there and I remember pretending to cook down there for hours. Sometimes she would sit down there with me and I would serve her a pretend meal. There was an old fashioned sewing machine down there (y'know, the kind you had to rock with your foot to keep it going) and an ancient television that didn't work, but we would sit there and pretend they did. She also had a ton of cool rocks in a bin in the basement. It's hard to explain... the bin was built into a wall unit/cabinet sort of thing. They were rocks she and my great-grandfather and family had collected over the years.

There was also a little room under the stairs that served as a cold room for her canning. She had the best pears, peaches and plums.

I remember there was a bed downstairs with a few dolls on it. They always scared the crap out of me because they had porcelain faces with the eyes that opened when you picked them up, so I would always keep a wary eye on them in case they got up off the bed and came to attack me.

The spare bedroom that I stayed in had a ton of pictures of the pope and the Royal Family. The sheets on the bed are probably still the softest I've ever felt in my entire life. Oh, she always had a ton of Trident gum in the bedroom as well. Not sure why...

Her bedroom had a huge jewelry box filled with more costume jewelry than one person would ever need. She also had this really nice cedar chest filled with Hudson Bay blankets (the cream coloured wool blankets with the red, black and yellow...or is it green... stripes along the side).

After she had her first stroke, she started seeing her lawyer about changing her will. A few weeks before her second stroke (and heart attack that time), she was talking about something I didn't quite understand. She slurred words after her first stroke, so sometimes I couldn't really understand what she was saying, but I'd pretend like I did because she'd cry and get frustrated if she could see her condition was affecting her way of life, etc. Anyway, she muttered something about how she was going to see her lawyer in a week and how everyone was going to be surprised. She was right after she told me that I was the only one who came to visit her, especially after her stroke. One of my great-aunts would come prepare all of her meals at that point (which were basically mush because she could barely swallow) but she wouldn't stay. They (two great-aunts and my grandfather) would ask me to stay with her, which I had no problem with, but I could tell, even at 16 years of age, that they were being terrible, ungrateful children. To this day, I am almost certain that she was going to change her revise her will again, cutting out her kids.

A few days later, however, she had a second stroke and a heart attack and was hospitalized for the last couple of remaining weeks of her life. It was hard seeing her in the hospital, so weak and barely lucid for longer than five minutes at a time. I think I saw her three times in the hospital and the last time being two days before she died. At that point she could not open her eyes, but when I spoke to her and told her I loved her, she squeezed my hand ever so slightly and stroked her thumb over mine.

Anyway, those are the memories of my great-grandmother. Oh, for those wondering, when the will was read after her death, it turns out she did manage to shock the family anyway. She divided her assets between her three kids but left nothing to any of the grand children or great-grand children... except for me. I received the cedar chest that I had loved so much (Of course there was some clause that said I couldn't have it until I was 18, so my parents gave it to my mom's friend. I saw it a few years ago and they had totally ruined it. That still makes me a little sad. Oh well.). To this day, that side of the family still has a grudge against me. Selfish assholes.

1 comment:

jp said...

That is incredibly powerful imagery, and a very sweet, touching tribute to a woman who quite obviously had such an impact on your life. Many thanks for sharing...