Sympathy Saturday: Gramma

NOTE:  This was supposed to auto-post on Saturday...  I guess it did not...

I started writing down the memories to tell you about my other grandmother (the non- douche bag one) and I came up with a very short list of specific memories that saddened me.  How could she have been so important, yet I can only think of 10 specific memories?  My grandmother meant the world to me- I even named my first born after her- yet I can’t think of more than 10 items? 

But then I realized that there are more to memories than events. 

I can’t tell you a story about how much my grandma loved me and how I felt her love every single day of my life.  I can tell you about her leaving ice cream money for me on the side table and watching me prance out to the ice cream truck with pretend grown-up glee while I picked out and paid for my own ice cream.  I would turn back and look toward the house and she would be peaking out the window.

I can’t tell you a story about sitting in my grandma’s lap and just being held.  I can tell you about her rounding up all the Avon lipstick samples she had and helping me set up a Lipstick Stand™ in front of her house for the neighborhood’s little girls.

I can’t tell you a story about sitting at the table with my grandma and just being with her.  I can tell you about playing Go Fish with her at that table while she drank her Carly Simon coffee (with clouds… I thought that song was about her…).  She would let me win and then pretend-cry that her own granddaughter was beating her.  “Help me, help me!” she would fake cry and I would laugh and laugh at the immense humor of Gramma.

I can’t tell you a story about how Gramma knew everything that was happening and was always calm.  I can tell you about the time I put a marble in my nose and it got stuck.  I was panicking on the inside but didn’t say anything at all to anyone.  Somehow, though, Gramma knew something was wrong and she pulled it out of me.  Literally.  I also remember wondering aloud to her how, in my head, I knew what the next words were going to be on the radio, but I couldn’t say them.  She explained to me that it was my hearing and that my brain knew the words before I could get it to my mouth.  That has, for some bizarre reason, stuck with me my whole life. 

I can’t tell you a story about how just being with Gramma was fun.  I can tell you that she would watch All My Children and explain the plots to me so that I would get just as sucked into the plotlines as she did.  I still remember a bunch of kids getting kidnapped.  I’m sure one was Erica Kane, but I didn’t care about that; I just cared that now I had a new game to play with my cousins besides Cops and Robbers- Kids and Kidnappers. 

I can’t tell you a story about how it broke my heart when I saw my grandfather cry at her funeral.  I didn’t understand death enough to feel the loss of Gramma, but I saw my grandfather cry and that was devastating.  I spent the rest of my childhood doing what I could to make Grampa happy and never ever cry again.  I can tell you about how I got a letter from her two days after she died that told me she was thinking of me because she had tacos for dinner.  At our next library trip, I set off to the card catalog to find information on taco poisoning (side note:  telling your kids that grandma died in her sleep without further explanation is not a good idea).

So I don’t have too many STORIES about Gramma, but I have a lifetime of memories that mean the world to me.  I’m proud every time I look at my Signa to think of the Signa Viola Felt that came before.