Grandma Rose
As Valentine's Day approaches, many of you are reflecting on candy and flowers and the other symbols of affection. It's at times like this I remember my own favorite flower. I wrote this to illustrate a character sketch for an 8th grade class in about 1998. A couple years later Grandma Rose passed away, but her legacy lives, not only in the flowers that share her name, but in the profound ways she influenced my life.
"Love is a red red rose...." So said Robert Burns, the eighteenth century poet. Given this metaphor, it is fitting that Rose also happens to be my grandma's name. Grandma Rose is a woman so full of love that it overflows into those around her. Born in 1899, she remains generous, kind, and deeply compassionate, but she still has never quite made the leap into this generation. Some people would say that Grandma Rose didn't "make the most of life," but her effect on the lives of those who know her proves otherwise. Although she doesn't seem to recognize it, Grandma Rose grows more interesting with age. Like a precious antique or a fine wine, she continues to gain value even as she approaches the day when she will have lived in three different centuries.
Grandma Rose is small and getting smaller. She has shrunk four inches in the last decade, the effect of walking around in the same body for 99 years. I once thought that maybe Grandma just appeared to be getting shorter because I was growing taller, but my last growth spurt ended 15 years ago. Standing straight, she's about 4'10" in her church shoes, which puts her at only a head taller than my six-year old daughter Elizabeth. Grandma's hair, which, according to ancient family photo albums, was once nearly black, is now snow white and beginning to thin. She still keeps it neatly curled, but if you catch her right after she wakes up, it sticks out in a kinky array like Einstein's. Grandma has never owned a pair of pants. Her entire weekday wardrobe consists of simple dresses, most of which she has owned since the '50s, and which have never gone out of style precisely because of their simplicity and plainness. When she leaves the house, which isn't often--usually only once a week for church--Grandma wears newer dresses (some only ten years old!) with more color or ruffles. Her gold watch (which still works as long as you wind it daily) is so old that the twist-o-flex band has begun to wear through in spots, and the back of the watch itself has been naturally polished to a perfect smoothness by fifty years of contact with her wrist. The wrinkled skin on Grandma's hands is like tanned leather with thick blue veins spidering through it. Her palms, which are always warm and dry, are calloused from a lifetime of labor in her house and in her garden. Although she hates it, Grandma now must use a walker to get around because a recent fall resulted in a fractured hip, which hospitalized her for a week and prompted a doctor to warn her that if she falls again she will surely break more than one fragile bone. Grandma's eyes are round, deep set, and dark, almost brooding. She wears bifocal lenses that might have been put together by Ben Franklin, if not for the splashes of lavender along the thin frames. To those who don't know her, Grandma is probably just another old lady. Other than the usual effects of age, she has no defining physical characteristic that sets her apart, but I see the character in her aged hands and the deep wrinkles of experience in her face, and I know that there's more to this little woman than her appearance indicates.
Everything Grandma Rose does somehow involves giving. When I was a child, she gave me treats and candy. When I was a teenager, she would slip money into my hand when my parents weren't looking. When I was in college, she bought me my first car. Now, she pours her generosity on my own children and offers me the advice and wisdom of a century's experience. "Even this shall pass away," she reminds me in times of stress. Grandma has an almost crippling sense of compassion, feeling other people's pain so deeply that it often moves her to tears. She cries at the images of starving children in other countries that they show on TV. She frets about whether her grandkids and great-grandkids will have any quality of life, living as we do in a world full of gangs and drugs and ignorance. She worries about wasting electricity and food, not because she is cheap, but because she is concerned that someone less well-off than herself may need it. Until recently, Grandma found the answer to every problem in self-sacrifice. If someone needed money, she would provide it and then go without things she wanted. If someone was hungry, she fed him from her own fridge. Although she has never been rich, she has donated thousands of dollars to church organizations that help people in third-world countries. When her 89-year-old sister suffered a series of paralyzing strokes, Grandma took care of her at home for a few years until she was no longer able; then, for the three years before her sister's death, Grandma spent eight hours a day with her in the rest home to keep her company. Grandma Rose is generous to a fault, if such a thing is possible. She really would give you the shirt off her back...if she wore shirts instead of dresses.
Although the years have shown Grandma Rose a great deal of pain, emotional as well as physical, that is not the reason she curses old age. Her greatest frustration about being 99 years old is that she can no longer care for people the way she used to. She cannot prepare the meals she once did, lift the children she once carried, or visit her friends in rest homes and hospitals. The week she spent in the hospital due to the recently fractured hip was almost more than she could bear. Not only can she no longer take care of others, but she also needs help with many basic activities. She can't walk well enough to go without a walker or a cane, and she frequently admits to being "absolutely disgusted" with herself, as though it's her fault. "Whoever said these were the 'Golden Years' ought to have his head examined!" she says of old age.
Because she is almost completely deaf, Grandma doesn't hear much of what is said to her, but she is too polite to ask anyone to repeat. Consequently, she frequently doesn't understand what is going on, and she sometimes appears confused, or she'll say something that doesn't relate to the conversation. Her hearing aid is the bane of her existence, whistling as it does when it is turned up too loud, or simply sitting uselessly in her ear when the battery runs out and she doesn't discover it until much later.
Grandma's old-world values make it impossible for her to understand much of the modern world. It is impossible for her to believe that my son James, who has long curly hair, is a boy. In her day, boys didn't have long hair. Conversely, my niece Hannah, who is bald as a cue ball at six months old, is, in Grandma's terms, "a handsome young man." It doesn't matter how many times we remind her that James is a boy and Hannah is a girl; to Grandma Rose, the hair is what determines the gender.
Technology scares Grandma. I'm not even referring to computers, but rather the things with which kids of this generation grew up: TV sets, microwave ovens, automobiles. She won't use a remote control to run the television set because she thinks it is like a laser gun, and she's afraid she'll start a fire. I was about ten when microwave ovens were just becoming the rage, and one night Grandma Rose was baby-sitting while my parents were out. She woke me up at about 11:30, worry creasing her face. "Mike," she said, "the temperature in that new oven keeps going up. I'm afraid it's going to explode." Confused, I followed her upstairs and looked at the microwave. Grandma pointed to the red LCD numbers on the front. "See, it just went up another degree!" "Grandma," I said, still too tired to laugh, "it's just a digital clock." Automatic doors are a constant source of amazement to Grandma, who remembers reading the fantastic stories of Ali Babba as a child. When I take her shopping, I call, "Open Sesame!" just as we pass under the sensor that tells the door to open. The look of utter surprise on her face is worth the angry stares of people we're holding up. And no matter how many times she sees them, doors that open automatically still amaze her. She never learned to drive a car and her only plane trip was at my mother's insistence. We took her to Denver once for Thanksgiving. Besides a car trip to Seattle, that's the farthest she's ever been from home.
Although she is the only surviving member of her immediate family and most of her friends died in the '70s, Grandma Rose is loved and respected by everyone who meets her. Through her church--she's unbelievably religious, having memorized most of the Bible--Grandma has met many people who have come to her aid in times of crisis. When my grandpa died ten years ago, Grandma had a constant stream of visitors baring meals and flowers for more than a month. Oddly, not all of Grandma's friends are old. In fact, the bulk of them are under 50, many of them in their twenties. I don't understand what they have in common, but I know that not many days go by when Grandma isn't visited by someone. It is because of this amazing loyalty and respect that Grandma inspires that she has been able to avoid entering the modern age: there is always someone around who will drive her where she needs to go, turn the TV on and off, and take care of any microwave cooking that may need to be done. She is a person who proves that it is not what you know, but who you know. And it is her personal relationships that have made her own life, as well as the lives of those who know her, richer.
Until she moved in with my dad, Grandma kept a rose garden in her yard that bloomed with a million colors every June. I see those roses that she cared for as symbols of the relationships she has maintained throughout her life. When she and Grandpa Bill moved into the little house in North Ogden in the 1930s, they planted a new rose bush every year. Like her relationships with friends and family, the rose garden continually grew larger and prettier, and like the garden that still remains in that yard, Grandma's influence on those of us who know her will go on even after she's gone.
A Rose
"Love is a red red rose...." So said Robert Burns, the eighteenth century poet. Given this metaphor, it is fitting that Rose also happens to be my grandma's name. Grandma Rose is a woman so full of love that it overflows into those around her. Born in 1899, she remains generous, kind, and deeply compassionate, but she still has never quite made the leap into this generation. Some people would say that Grandma Rose didn't "make the most of life," but her effect on the lives of those who know her proves otherwise. Although she doesn't seem to recognize it, Grandma Rose grows more interesting with age. Like a precious antique or a fine wine, she continues to gain value even as she approaches the day when she will have lived in three different centuries.
Grandma Rose is small and getting smaller. She has shrunk four inches in the last decade, the effect of walking around in the same body for 99 years. I once thought that maybe Grandma just appeared to be getting shorter because I was growing taller, but my last growth spurt ended 15 years ago. Standing straight, she's about 4'10" in her church shoes, which puts her at only a head taller than my six-year old daughter Elizabeth. Grandma's hair, which, according to ancient family photo albums, was once nearly black, is now snow white and beginning to thin. She still keeps it neatly curled, but if you catch her right after she wakes up, it sticks out in a kinky array like Einstein's. Grandma has never owned a pair of pants. Her entire weekday wardrobe consists of simple dresses, most of which she has owned since the '50s, and which have never gone out of style precisely because of their simplicity and plainness. When she leaves the house, which isn't often--usually only once a week for church--Grandma wears newer dresses (some only ten years old!) with more color or ruffles. Her gold watch (which still works as long as you wind it daily) is so old that the twist-o-flex band has begun to wear through in spots, and the back of the watch itself has been naturally polished to a perfect smoothness by fifty years of contact with her wrist. The wrinkled skin on Grandma's hands is like tanned leather with thick blue veins spidering through it. Her palms, which are always warm and dry, are calloused from a lifetime of labor in her house and in her garden. Although she hates it, Grandma now must use a walker to get around because a recent fall resulted in a fractured hip, which hospitalized her for a week and prompted a doctor to warn her that if she falls again she will surely break more than one fragile bone. Grandma's eyes are round, deep set, and dark, almost brooding. She wears bifocal lenses that might have been put together by Ben Franklin, if not for the splashes of lavender along the thin frames. To those who don't know her, Grandma is probably just another old lady. Other than the usual effects of age, she has no defining physical characteristic that sets her apart, but I see the character in her aged hands and the deep wrinkles of experience in her face, and I know that there's more to this little woman than her appearance indicates.
Everything Grandma Rose does somehow involves giving. When I was a child, she gave me treats and candy. When I was a teenager, she would slip money into my hand when my parents weren't looking. When I was in college, she bought me my first car. Now, she pours her generosity on my own children and offers me the advice and wisdom of a century's experience. "Even this shall pass away," she reminds me in times of stress. Grandma has an almost crippling sense of compassion, feeling other people's pain so deeply that it often moves her to tears. She cries at the images of starving children in other countries that they show on TV. She frets about whether her grandkids and great-grandkids will have any quality of life, living as we do in a world full of gangs and drugs and ignorance. She worries about wasting electricity and food, not because she is cheap, but because she is concerned that someone less well-off than herself may need it. Until recently, Grandma found the answer to every problem in self-sacrifice. If someone needed money, she would provide it and then go without things she wanted. If someone was hungry, she fed him from her own fridge. Although she has never been rich, she has donated thousands of dollars to church organizations that help people in third-world countries. When her 89-year-old sister suffered a series of paralyzing strokes, Grandma took care of her at home for a few years until she was no longer able; then, for the three years before her sister's death, Grandma spent eight hours a day with her in the rest home to keep her company. Grandma Rose is generous to a fault, if such a thing is possible. She really would give you the shirt off her back...if she wore shirts instead of dresses.
Although the years have shown Grandma Rose a great deal of pain, emotional as well as physical, that is not the reason she curses old age. Her greatest frustration about being 99 years old is that she can no longer care for people the way she used to. She cannot prepare the meals she once did, lift the children she once carried, or visit her friends in rest homes and hospitals. The week she spent in the hospital due to the recently fractured hip was almost more than she could bear. Not only can she no longer take care of others, but she also needs help with many basic activities. She can't walk well enough to go without a walker or a cane, and she frequently admits to being "absolutely disgusted" with herself, as though it's her fault. "Whoever said these were the 'Golden Years' ought to have his head examined!" she says of old age.
Because she is almost completely deaf, Grandma doesn't hear much of what is said to her, but she is too polite to ask anyone to repeat. Consequently, she frequently doesn't understand what is going on, and she sometimes appears confused, or she'll say something that doesn't relate to the conversation. Her hearing aid is the bane of her existence, whistling as it does when it is turned up too loud, or simply sitting uselessly in her ear when the battery runs out and she doesn't discover it until much later.
Grandma's old-world values make it impossible for her to understand much of the modern world. It is impossible for her to believe that my son James, who has long curly hair, is a boy. In her day, boys didn't have long hair. Conversely, my niece Hannah, who is bald as a cue ball at six months old, is, in Grandma's terms, "a handsome young man." It doesn't matter how many times we remind her that James is a boy and Hannah is a girl; to Grandma Rose, the hair is what determines the gender.
Technology scares Grandma. I'm not even referring to computers, but rather the things with which kids of this generation grew up: TV sets, microwave ovens, automobiles. She won't use a remote control to run the television set because she thinks it is like a laser gun, and she's afraid she'll start a fire. I was about ten when microwave ovens were just becoming the rage, and one night Grandma Rose was baby-sitting while my parents were out. She woke me up at about 11:30, worry creasing her face. "Mike," she said, "the temperature in that new oven keeps going up. I'm afraid it's going to explode." Confused, I followed her upstairs and looked at the microwave. Grandma pointed to the red LCD numbers on the front. "See, it just went up another degree!" "Grandma," I said, still too tired to laugh, "it's just a digital clock." Automatic doors are a constant source of amazement to Grandma, who remembers reading the fantastic stories of Ali Babba as a child. When I take her shopping, I call, "Open Sesame!" just as we pass under the sensor that tells the door to open. The look of utter surprise on her face is worth the angry stares of people we're holding up. And no matter how many times she sees them, doors that open automatically still amaze her. She never learned to drive a car and her only plane trip was at my mother's insistence. We took her to Denver once for Thanksgiving. Besides a car trip to Seattle, that's the farthest she's ever been from home.
Although she is the only surviving member of her immediate family and most of her friends died in the '70s, Grandma Rose is loved and respected by everyone who meets her. Through her church--she's unbelievably religious, having memorized most of the Bible--Grandma has met many people who have come to her aid in times of crisis. When my grandpa died ten years ago, Grandma had a constant stream of visitors baring meals and flowers for more than a month. Oddly, not all of Grandma's friends are old. In fact, the bulk of them are under 50, many of them in their twenties. I don't understand what they have in common, but I know that not many days go by when Grandma isn't visited by someone. It is because of this amazing loyalty and respect that Grandma inspires that she has been able to avoid entering the modern age: there is always someone around who will drive her where she needs to go, turn the TV on and off, and take care of any microwave cooking that may need to be done. She is a person who proves that it is not what you know, but who you know. And it is her personal relationships that have made her own life, as well as the lives of those who know her, richer.
Until she moved in with my dad, Grandma kept a rose garden in her yard that bloomed with a million colors every June. I see those roses that she cared for as symbols of the relationships she has maintained throughout her life. When she and Grandpa Bill moved into the little house in North Ogden in the 1930s, they planted a new rose bush every year. Like her relationships with friends and family, the rose garden continually grew larger and prettier, and like the garden that still remains in that yard, Grandma's influence on those of us who know her will go on even after she's gone.
posted by MRT at 11:14 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home