My grandmother was what would have been termed scandalous in her day. She dared to buck the norm and divorced my grandfather, became a single mother with my father and worked a job, now remember this was back in the 1920's -30's and these were not things that proper women did. Thus is the way that her life went she tossed her head in defiance when she was told that she should not do something and went on and usually did it.
She was a bigger then life woman, believed in living life to the fullest and not spending it unhappy, she did what she had to do, she had a wild heart and a free spirit as I came to know my grandmother I learned to appreciate these aspects of her, even envying her to some extent. My grandmother was the black sheep of her family and a rebel. I felt a kinship with her and wish that I had had the ability to get to know her at a much younger age.
As it was I didn't even meet my grandmother until I was at the tender age of 13. She was getting up in age and could no longer live on her own, too many falls, too many incidents, a dirty house that she could care less about, no longer able to drive safely. So the wheels were set in motion and my parents moved her down to where we lived so that they could keep a better eye on her. She refused to live with us, however, so arrangements were made for her to live in a nice little retirement community about a mile from where we lived. I remember how anxious I was to meet this lady who was my father's mother. How jolly she was. She just fit the whole definition of jolly right down to her rather large frame I felt immediately at ease with her, I felt like I had known her all my life and she understood me.
Through my high school years I got to know this wonderful women and loved sitting in her little home talking to her about the things she did as a girl and a young woman, all the trouble she caused, and the rules that she broke and she seemed rather pleased with herself for her rebelliousness and I was as well.
I remember going over to her house one afternoon for a visit. I had just broken up with a boy, and the same day had learned that I had gotten a rather nice job...nice for a high school student anyway. Not the usual fast food drone, I managed to get a part-time position with the local newspaper assisting the circulation manager. But that somehow seemed diminished in the face of losing, who I thought was, THE boy for me. I walked in shoulders hunched over, eyes red from crying and my grandmother looked at me after hearing all I had to tell her about my ex boyfriend as well as the new job, a big smile flashing across her face with a sly look in her eyes and exclaimed to me what in the world was I sad for!? She told me that I don't need that boy anyway, look at me I had a job and a good one at that. I am becoming a strong, independent woman, and strong independent women do not NEED men. We keep them around for amusement. I laughed in spite of myself and felt instantly better. My grandmother had a way about her that is hard to explain - she just knew the right things to say, and sometimes the not-so-right things to say, but they needed to be said.
My grandmother was still alive when I married my first husband and had my first born, a son. It was instant love at first sight for her. She always swore to me that he was going to be a MLB catcher. When he was a toddler he loved to crouch down in the catchers stance and just watch all the was going on around him, she was a HUGE baseball fan and was tickled pink seeing him do this, he is a natural she would proclaim.
I was pregnant with my 2nd child when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and she spent the last weeks of her life living in my old bedroom at my mother and fathers house as my mother took care of her along with hospice. My grandmother wanted no ceremony, no pomp and circumstance for her death. Just cremate her and be done with it she told my parents.
I was bedridden for the last few months of my pregnancy with thrombosis, bells palsy, and a very active baby who seemed to insist on remaining in a breech position and so I was unable to visit my grandmother much in the end. My mother called me late one morning to let me know the news. Grandmother had died. I cried all day. I blamed it on the hormones due to the pregnancy, but I was very, very sad and knew I would miss her presence in my life. I cried because she would never know the child I was carrying, and she would never see the grandson that she did know become the baseball player that she was so sure he would be. I cried because.
That night I thought that my insides were turning upside down I was in extreme pain and sought out my obstetrician the next day, who informed me that even though I was just a short time from delivery, the baby had turned and I would be able to give birth vaginally after all. He said he had never seen a baby turn this close to delivery.
A few weeks later I gave birth, on my grandmothers birthday no less to a gorgeous and large healthy baby girl. From the start I knew that this little girl was going to be a trial for me. She was independent, stubborn, had a rebel heart in her.
She was everything that my grandmother was right down to her beauty. This daughter of mine has never failed to live up to her grandmothers wild spirit and raising her has been a feat of patience for me. To this day she reminds me so much of my grandmother that I just have to believe that there is a something bigger here at work.
Today my daughter is married and on her own, but still she is un-tamable just like my grandmother was, she has a presence that no one can ignore and when she smiles I sometimes catch a glimpse of the sly look my grandmother gave me so long ago proclaiming I was a strong, independent woman.
This young woman is certainly her great grandmothers, great grand daughter.