So I was laying in bed thinking about how cold my feet were -- I'd been working in the draft, oblivious to my chilling tootsies -- and thinking I should really find my pink fuzzy slippers my kids got me for Christmas three years ago.
They're big and hairy (the slippers, not the kids) and you'd think they'd be really warm, for being so plush, but it occurred to me that no slippers could possibly get my feet as warm as the red woolen ones my Grandma used to knit for us every winter.
She was skilled in all sorts of fancy handwork, abilities learned at the knee of her Norwegian mother and aunts even before she sailed into New York harbor as a blue-eyed girl of 8, destined first for Ellis Island and then for a farming life in North Dakota.
The slippers she made us (and mittens too, for that matter) had to be red, as Grandma knew what most grandmothers seem to know -- that you will always lose just one, so the remaining slippers and mittens will need mates. She kept a drawer of singlet slippers and mittens by the door, hospitably ready for any visitor to come in and politely take their shoes off and warm up chilled toes in two little nearly-matched bits of hand-knitted heaven.
It's a scientific fact, her red mittens and slippers were the warmest, just as her sheets were the whitest and crispest and an education in and of themselves as outside their linen folds I had no understanding that sheets could be either crisp or white.
The truth is, my grandmother was the mother of all superlatives for me. Her laugh would charm the most hardened criminal; her look of disapproval from a flash of blue eyes the color of Norwegian seas under arched eyebrows, if incurred, weighed like an anvil on the shoulders of the mind.
Her pork chops were the most delicately seasoned I have ever consumed, the raspberries from her garden the sweetest, her roses the rosiest and her many species of African violets the violetest.
She served me grape Hi-C in glasses etched so pristinely it was like drinking from tiny chandeliers, quite a heady nectar it was, too. When I was more grown-up, there was hot tea with milk, and always her Scottish shortbread that melted at tongue temperature. Every piece of shortbread I've had since has failed to live up to the Grandmother standard.
With her clip-on mabe pearl earrings, true red lipstick perfectly applied and a light blue scarf at her throat, she was a picture of elegance each Saturday as we went to grocery shop, where I was assured a mint from her big clasped leather handbag.
My dad sent me all her handbags after she died, mailed me a big box of them because he didn't know what else to do with them, he said.
At the time, I was nonplussed at his gift of the ancient but still immaculate purses that had once been repositories for all that Grandma needed for our big weekly outing. I regret to say I could do what he couldn't -- I threw them out. I'd love to have just one of them now to put my cold memories in and warm them up.
But since my dad died I have her songbook from the Sons of Norway lodge, and I have her bean pot and the afghan and pillowcase that softened her gleaming maple rocker.
I know my grandma had her human side, but I never really saw it, or perhaps a glimpse when I exasperated or disappointed her -- which had to be often, but she was a patient woman.
She was something of a rock for family and neighbors, a legendary example of what love looked like when it was busy.
And she was the reason that every Christmas I searched for that perfect light blue scarf to give her, maybe one the color of the eyes of the morning glories on the vines that climbed over the trellis against her white storybook cottage that I now realize must have been just 600 square feet in size. She would always be surprised and delighted with each and have some nice remark about the fabric or the color.
When she died, she had a whole drawer full of light blue scarves because, of course, she couldn't throw them out.
My theory, and I could be wrong, is that when Grandma got to Heaven, she put a drawer full of nearly-matched hand-knitted red slippers by the pearly gates, waiting hospitably to welcome guests and take the chill of the journey off, and come in and have some and Scottish shortbread that melts at tongue temperature.
At least, that's my idea of Heaven.
I wasn't able to be there when my grandmother died; I couldn't go to her funeral or see her peers come to mourn her. Perhaps that's why I sometimes feel like she's still with me.
Call me sentimental, but sometimes I almost think I can hear -- more likely feel -- the sound of her chuckle as we cut up salmon filets for canning in the August sunshine or her voice warbling the last Norwegian she could recall -- the national anthem -- or calling me in from hiding under the all-enveloping green canopy of her weeping willow.
And it's almost like I'm in her warm and creaking kitchen once again and she's tucking me into snowy sheets on the rollaway cot and I think if I ever get a chance to be that memorable and meaningful to some child I would be honored beyond belief, and if I ever get a chance to live up to her gene pool and exhibit even a fifth of that old-fashioned hospitality and graciousness -- even in the face of grave circumstances -- I would have achieved true character. By the Grandmother standard, by which all truly good things -- from pork chops to sheets -- are measured.
And maybe I'll start by taking up knitting. I'm thinking ... slippers.
Do you have good memories of a beloved grandparent, or an idea of what Heaven must be like? Leave me a note -- I'd love to hear about them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I overhead my dear Grandma Windquist secretly telling my mother what all the girl cousins were going to get that year for Christmas. I kept the secret to myself for at least an hour until I had most of the girl cousins collected. Our gift was going to be kangaroos and I was sure I heard right. Well, it turns out it was grandma's knitted cardigans not kangaroos for each girl including my sisters and I. We were just as happy not knowing what we would have done with four kangaroos.
www.momlaughs.blogspot.com
Cheryl
Cabbage, Dollar Bills and NYC Stationery.....
The only grandmother, or grandparent for that matter, that I ever had the opportunity to "know" was my mother's mother...a first generation to this country Pole. We called her Babci (Bob-chee) but her English equivalent name was actually Bertha as in Bertha's Mussels! What connections we have!! Anyway...my grandma was the old woman...she always seemed old...who would mysteriously appear from her tiny crammed bedroom that she had to share with one of my little cousins..one of seven people who lived in that Pavonia Avenue Jersey City apartment. The place always had a "funny" smell when we entered and slowly (we never came empty handed) climbed up the massive winding staircase to the second floor apartment. The odor was not unlike that which was experienced on the drive over from western New Jersey...the forever burning Jersey swampland stench. Although miles away, it seemed to get trapped in the entryway of this building. But, the minute one would enter that apartment, it was evident that much Polish comfort food had been cooked for the feast that was sure to follow. Since Babci spoke little English there was not much information exchanged between her and us grandkids. My mother spoke Polish and could communicate with her but we still never had those talks that would have explained much. Damn. I do remember her for odd things like chopping cabbage. She would chop, chop, chop until it was completely evenly pulverized. No Cuisinart could ever duplicate this feat. She would also pass dollar bills to each and every one of us visiting grandkids. They were rolled or folded super tight and she would always sneak them into our hands or pockets so that our parents could not complain about the extravagance. And if we stayed there long enough she would bring out the recycled paper from her night job working as a cleaning woman in Manhattan offices. For years she would trudge over to NYC with a band of cleaning women and grab up the tossed stationery...nothing was every wasted. This became our sketch-and-keeping-busy paper and sometimes we also got to bring some of it home where I would then marvel and fantasize at the fancy printed New York addresses. Visiting this apartment in the big city was a big contrast to our spacious home in the clean air country. However, it always felt physically warm and cozy since it was sandwiched between other apartments. But most of all it was always emotionally inviting since it was our Babci's home.
Thank you, Jackie, that was so delightful, brought memories of my own paternal grandmother.
She was a crotchetier and I have many pieces of her exquisite work. A special tablecloth made just to fit my larger that usual dinning room table, is a dear memory of her every time I use it. I can remember how with patience she taught me to crochet.
She also had wonderful flower gardens, I can still see her in my minds eye with her straw hat on working in her gardens. They were so lovely, multi-colored and well tended.
She always had time for me and always encouraged me. I remember with joy the heart warming experiences of spending nights at grandpa and grandma's home. The candy dish on the corner of the buffet for their grandchildren to help themselves. I am now the owner of that candy dish, what a sweet memory.
For most of my growing up years they lived with in the same country community. I remember one Christmas when I was a very little girl, my dad harnessed up the horses to the sled, put bells on the harnesses and off we went through the woods over to my grandparents place. What a delightful memory.
A delicious Thanksgiving memory concerning her is the truly wonderful duck and dressing that she made. Yum, I would love to have some now. She raised her own ducks and chickens on their little farm. She nurtured fruit trees and made her own delicious preserves. My grandparents had a canning cellar dug into a small hill on their property and one of the things I remember from there were her pickles in those huge ceramic crocks, she was known for her dill pickles and how I enjoyed them.
I was richly blessed by my grandpa and grandma and there unconditional love for me!!
Thanks for this trip down memory lane, my friend.
Polly
Post a Comment