Granny

Wintergreen Certs.  When I was little, Granny had a huge beige purse filled with countless coupons and wintergreen certs that required a small-scale search.  The child-size gold and green cylinder was usually on the bottom.  Granny knew they were my favorite, and I ate a lot of them sitting in the pews of First Baptist Church. 

Stuffed Animals.  At Easter, at Christmas, on birthdays, and sometimes just because I fell in love with one on the Kiddie Land shelf, Granny loaded me up.  When a holiday was around the corner, she told all the cousins to pick out the stuffed animals we wanted, and she’d remember and wrap them all up for us.  Granny was always interested in the specifics.  She listened patiently as I told her what I liked and wanted most.  She valued my uniqueness.  Granny made me feel known, seen, and loved.  I eventually had enough stuffed animals to cover my entire bed with me in it.  I slept like that more than once. 

Beauty.  Granny, perhaps unknowingly, and maybe just because it was in her nature to do so, assured me that I was beautiful year after year by putting me on the runway at City Hall in dresses, skirts, coolats, and legwarmers.  When the Fashion Show moved to the shiny new Civic Center, it might as well have been New York.  Granny gave me a chance to feel glamorous, a little bit like a movie star.  She put our pictures in the paper to advertise her clothes, and she carefully cut out the black and white photos and posted them up by the cash register to show her customers.  “Oh, how pret-ty,” she would say when I pushed back the pink and purple flowered curtain of the dressing room to show her what I was trying on.  I’ve rarely felt pretty enough, but Granny thought I was pretty, and she told me so over and over and over. 

Travel.  My first memory of adventure is of Granny taking me all the way across the viaduct to the Little Shop of German where she bought me my first batch of gummy bears.  I was wary of them, but she convinced me to try just one.  I picked an orange one, and she was right.  Gummy bears are delicious.  Thanks to Granny, I had a grass skirt from the Bahamas, wooden clogs from Holland, and baby dolls from China.  I thought one of the China dolls was really pretty with her exotic blue silk outfit and long black braids.  The other one looked a little too foreign to me.  I never dreamed I would travel to China, much less come home with my own beautiful baby girl, but I think partial credit goes to Granny.  She planted the seeds early on with those sweet little baby dolls.  I always wanted to grow up and travel like Granny and her zany sister, Doris (pronounced Darce).  Luckily, I have gotten to.    

Granny’s (as in 304 Hoeppner Lane).  Granny’s was my second home. Granny and I took baths together when I was little. She always wore a shower cap so she wouldn’t mess up her hair, and she talked me into wearing one, too.  She made me giggle hard when she washed under my arms with her washrag insisting that’s where the Granny Beads were and that they needed serious attention.   When I spent the night with her, she let me stay up late and sit on the couch between her and Granddaddy to watch Johnny Carson.  She always got tickled, and I loved that laugh of hers.  She let me be a night owl and didn’t make me get up too early in the morning.  Her house holds more memories for me than my own does.  Puppet shows.  Easter egg hunts.  Picking cucumbers with Granddaddy in his garden.  Examining the flowerbeds with Granny.  Playing in the secret passageway closet.  Recording a flushing toilet on cassette.   Singing The One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater.   Divvying up the coveted birthday cake icing roses.  Presents galore.  Soft blankets to crawl under.  Hugs.  Welcome homes.  Granny in the kitchen.  The sound of the back door opening and closing.  And constant rambling conversations – everyone talking at the same time and enjoying it that way.  At Granny’s, I could relax and be myself.  It’s a place I always ended up laughing.  

Support.  When I got busy and tried a million activities from ballet to spelling bees to track and field to church choir, Granny always came to watch.  She would usually say, “You did so good” or “I’m so proud of you” or “That was really somethin’,” but what mattered most was her perpetual presence.  She was a laid back cheerleader, and she was a very good one. 

The only scolding I can ever remember from Granny was mild.  It was for scraping the overgrown frost out of the old timey freezer (icebox) in the back of Kiddie Land and eating it with Natalie out of Dixie cups.  “But it’s delicious,” we tried explain to her.  She laughed, but she said we had to stop eating it.  It was nasty.  It would make us sick, she said.  It never did, but I felt guilty for sneaking and eating it every time after that. 

Some people think we get our first ideas of what God is like from our parents.  I think there’s a lot of truth to that, but I also got my idea of who God is from my grandparents.  Granny was unconditional love.  She was joyful and peaceful, and she made me feel like I was special.  She made me feel like we all are.

When I was blindsided by betrayal and divorce, Granny told me with choked up emotion in her voice how sorry for me she was.  She held me in her arms and told me that she loved me when I desperately needed to be reminded that I was loveable.  She also told me how much she cared every other year of my life through Valentines, Easter, and Birthday cards.  Granny loved a good greeting card.  It was fun to go to Bookland and slow look with her.  I think she put more thought into what she picked than the average person.   

Granny survived cancer twice, and I never heard one word of complaint from her.  I remember Mom telling me that during her last bout with cancer said she, “I’ve had such a rich and happy life that I couldn’t complain if God chose to take me now.”  Granny always seemed satisfied with what she had been given. She was happy, at peace, and grateful.  I wish I knew her secret to pulling that off. 

When I asked Leslie to ask Granny when she felt closest to God, she said, “When all my kids are around me.”  I’m pretty sure she was talking about all of us - her children, her grandchildren, everyone who married in, and her precious great grandchildren.  We are all hers.  Equally important.  Equally loved. 

So when I walked into her house on Saturday greeted by hugs and tears of my aunts and uncles and cousins, I couldn’t help but believe that that was exactly what she would want.  All of us sitting on her couches, brushing her wispy hair, playing in her yard, holding her hands, eating at her table, joking with her the way we always do just in case she could hear us, badly singing hymns, kissing her forehead, closing our eyes in prayer, playing heart and soul on the piano, talking about everything and nothing, commenting on her smooth skin and nightly Ponds cold cream regiment, basically getting as close as we could. 

Because Granny was always close, never far away, always there if we needed her, perfectly located in our lives and in our hearts, there with certs or yeast rolls or a new outfit or a ham sandwich or a trip to the toonky toonk or Jello cheesecake or a stuffed rabbit or money or there beside you in a one piece bathing suit with a ridiculous flowered skirt taking your hand and leading you into the ocean to jump the waves with her.

 Zephaniah 3:17 says. . .

"For the Lord your God is living among you.  He is a might savior.  He will take delight in you with gladness.  With his love, he will calm all your fears.  He will rejoice over you with joyful songs."

Granny was like that.  She was like God with skin on, skin that smelled like White Shoulders powder and Caress soap.  The Holy Spirit comforting us with a pot of green beans slowly cooking on the stove. Granny forgave all our sins and taught me the most profound thing I know.  She taught me that no matter what unconditional love really is the best way to go.

I miss her already.  I wish we could go to the All-Steak after church tomorrow and eat a few orange rolls.  I wish I could hear her laugh one more time.  I wish Adie would grow up knowing her.  I wish her house, with her in it, would be always be the meeting place for the people I love the most.  But I can't really complain.  And Granny wouldn't want me to.  I am really thankful we had her for so long and that I got to be near her when it was time for her to go.  If she were here, she'd probably point out some silver lining that I can't quite see, around the cloud over my soul.  She'd probably say, "Don't you worry about me.  You take care of that sweet baby.  I'll be just fine up here with Jesus and John Clinton and Woodrow."