The Dauphin and I spent yesterday visiting with Grandma and Grandpa at the family barbecue. We don’t get to spend as much time with them as we’d like. During our conversation, Grandpa teased me a little about the fact he’d asked to read my manuscript a few weeks before, and I hadn’t sent it to him yet. (Okay, fine, I was chicken: Grandpa used to be a journalist.) I sent them the first three chapters in e-mail earlier today.
Grandma called about half an hour ago to say how much she liked what I’d sent. She’s not necessarily a romance reader, so I was touched and thrilled that she liked it! (Grandpa hasn’t read it yet. Wait till he finds out there are no sex scenes in chapters 1-3.) Mostly, I got a few minutes to talk with her. She told me that one of our cousins was an aspiring diva. We talked a little about what’s happened to live performances of classical music. (They seem to be dwindling.) It was almost ninety degrees again today and I’m in a sweltering house (still), but it was a good thing to sit in the dark and chat with Grandma on the phone.
I hope we will have Grandma and Grandpa with us for years. Someday, they will go, and I will miss them every day for the rest of my life. In the meantime, there’s so much more to say, and I hope I’ll have many more opportunities to say it.
-S
Okay – now that I’ve played with the troll, I want to talk Grammas! (Sorry this is sooo long. I tend to ramble anyway, but I love talking about my Gramma.)
Both of my grandmothers have passed on, but their love for me has remained as a blessing in my life. My Gramma White, my mom’s mom, had the most influence because I usually only saw my other gramma a few times a year. Gramma had gone through so many terrible times, but she was the most loving, accepting person. Somehow, on a fixed income and with 39 grandkids, she managed to make each of us believe we were her favorite. One of the things we laughed about during her funeral service was her closet. She had this little linen closet by the bathroom, and every time each of us visit, she would go to the closet and pull out some little something — a ball, a doll, a 5&10 store trinket, and tell us, “I’ve been saving this just for you.”
One of my favorite stories about her love and acceptance — for everyone, not just family — was when my cousin B. made me go with him as moral support so he could tell Gramma he was gay. (I’d known since we were 16 and hanging out on the beach, and asked him why he didn’t just admit he was oogling the same guys I was. Yeah, tactful was not my style back then.)
Now, both of us were thinking, “This is gonna kill her!” but B. wanted to be honest with her – especially since almost everyone knew and, in our family, there was no such thing as a secret. Somebody was going to burst. LOL
So there we are, eating one of Gramma’s 10-minute 12-course meals (she was amazing in the kitchen! You blinked and a huge meal was on the table.) and trying to act normal. Finally, B. tells her he had a reason for coming the 500 miles from his parents’ house and very carefully said, “Gramma, I’m gay.” She looked at him and said, “Oh. Well, do you want more peas?” He and I both looked at each other for help, and B. asked if she understood what he meant.
Well, she reached over, patted his hand and said, “Well, of course, I know what it means, honey. I just don’t care. I’ve always told you kids, ‘When you find love, grab it with both hands and don’t let go.’ I don’t care what sex they are.” B. and I literally burst into tears, because it’s one thing to know your Gramma loves you, but it’s another to know she loves you exactly as you are.
She then spent an hour telling us about her apartment in FL (she lived there Nov-May) and how, when she first applied and then moved in, she hadn’t realized exactly why there were so many men with “roommates.” And of course, no one in the building could figure out how to tell this sweet old lady — who used chocolate chip cookies for the office staff as a bribe — that maybe this wasn’t the right building for her.
She was also a serious romance novel addict, and spawned the same addiction in her granddaughters. Many’s the time when she’d pull a new book out of the closet for us.
Comment by PA_Lady — July 2, 2008 @ 8:41 am