My Grandma

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Write about your grandma. Was she a good cook? Did she tell you stories of her life? Did she yell at you or spoil you rotten? Rise and Link

My Grandma

I am number nine of ten children in my family, my dad already 40 when I was born.  He was also one of the younger children in his family.  My mom only had one older sister, how had two children, decades older than me. This made me and my sisters on both sides of us, the youngest cousins on both sides.  We actually grew up more with the children of our cousins.  This is not unsimilar to how my youngest is, with thirty years between my oldest niece (just five years younger than me).  My mom lost her mother before I was born, and my maternal grandfather died when I was just three, as did my paternal grandfather.  I give this as background to share I only knew one grandparent, my dad's mom.

I am not sure when she moved, or probably was moved, from her rural home into an apartment in the town near where I grew up in the country.  The apartment was a mother-in-law style apartment made form the attic of a two story house.  That alone made this a fun pace to visit as you went up two flights of stairs to reach her cute little apartment. In hindsight, having a 70+ year old woman moving into a living space that required her to lug groceries, suitcases, or any other things up two flights was probably ridiculous, but she lived there at least past 80.  Eventually she was moved into first an assisted living apartment, and then a nursing home before she passed away at 87.

My sisters and I would often spend Saturdays or school days off with our grandma, once we were old enough for school. She lived in walking distance of a park with full playground and ice rink in the winter, a large grocery store, and just two blocks away, a tiny little store that carried milk, bread, and a few other staples, but mostly snacks and  soda pop, and most impressively, bins of penny candy.  This is my strongest memory of spending time with my grandmas is walking to the little store with a hand full of pennies and maybe a nickle or dime, and coming back to her apartment with a full plastic bag of candies.  My grandma kept a margarine or Cool whip tub with her odd change, and form that, we were gifted our treasure to exchange for an even sweeter treasure. Grandma kept toys for us, as well as paper dolls, and coloring books and crayons, really, all kids would need to keep busy, chewing on our candy or sucking on our lolly's. Those were lovely days. Most pictures we have of her were either black and white, or if in color, were of her a bit older, so I don't remember this, but I was told she had red hair, and with her very fair Welsh-Irish skin, she was stunning. I remember that her eyes smiled.

 I am ashamed to say that once she was in the nursing home, visiting her became a chore, or rather going to the home, became a chore.  The home was not in our nearby town, but 30 minutes away, and depressing. My grandmas's eyes didn't smile when she was in the home, though she still laughed and liked to talk with us. One thing I will always be grateful for is that both of my parents lived in their own home until they passed away.

When she passed away, this was the first time I remember ever seeing my dad cry.  I didn't see his tears again until my mother died. Even when he lost two of his sisters and his younger brother, he was stoic, but losing the two most important women in his life made even the toughest of men shed tears.