kerewin's whine cellar

Cocolalla Lake

My grandmother was a tough old lady. In her life she was married four times and had six kids, one of whom died early on in life. She was one of those rare women in the Forties and Fifties who worked to support her kids. She even had her own diner, for awhile.

Most of the time the family lived in fairly abject poverty. My mother only alludes to the physical abuse she suffered at the hands of many a step-father. Mom was the eldest daughter in the family and as early as five remembers preparing meals and cooking and cleaning for all of her siblings. Dad tells the story of when he and Mom met and starting going out, one night they were out past curfew and ran into grandma, out carousing with her latest fling. Neither one ratted the other out.

I was fairly lucky in that I never really saw that side of my Grandma, at least not until later. As a kid I remember a Grandma and Grandpa who had a cute little lake cabin up at Lake Cocolalla, near Sandpoint, Idaho. Many a weekend in the Summer, we would all drive to the cabin, sometimes to see all the Aunts and Uncles and spouses and cousins, sometimes just to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa. There was this spooky shed that had all the old ratty lake stuff, and I was always a little creeped out to go in there and get innertubes, or the like. Dank and dingy, it was filled with cobwebs.

I remember huge meals of greasy, fried food. I recall vividly my sister and myself having to wash all those dishes, while all the adults played cards. For some reason, none of the other grandkids had this onerous task, or perhaps that's just my memory getting in the way. Grandma loved to play cards and this dice game called 5,000. That's what I really remember about her, all those summer days wiled away in the cabin, playing cards.

Grandma was a manipulative lady, who pitted her kids against each other. My Mom was always the perfect child, never got in trouble, never argued, yet somehow she was cast in the role of pariah, while the other troubled sibs got to be pet, in their turn. As an adult, I think she was regarded warily as a goodie-two-shoes by her sisters and brothers because of her lack of divorces, or for never being on welfare, nor having several children with different men. In many ways my mother tried very hard to live opposite of her own mother.

This tended to cause rifts in the family, as Dad and Grandma regarded each other as the-one-who-manipulates-Mom. Dad was always seeing my Mom's feelings getting hurt, and it made him angry. He always deals with anger and fear the same way, with anger and violence. You could easily be getting a very Jerry Springer sort of idea of my mother's family, and you couldn't be closer to the truth, really.

(side note one - once Mother was feeling really sick, and she knew Grandma and Grandpa were in town for the evening and were coming over for dinner. She got a stew started in the oven, and went to lay down for a bit. They came over, saw the food, dished up, ate, and left, leaving all the mess. They never even woke Mom up!)

For many years after I left Spokane, I didn't really keep in touch with Grandma. A phone call here, a chance meetup there. I expected fire and brimstone, or the hand of god to reach down and smite her, yet she was always sweet and loving to me. Grandma always told me how good I looked, how happy she was to see me, and reminded me to call her every now and then.

(side note two - when I was 13, my Grandma pulled my mom aside and suggested that I looked like I might be in the "family way." THIRTEEN! Good lord. Although being preggers might be almost nicer than the family propensity for taking on weight that I seem to have inherited.)

Two years ago my mother-in-law asked about my Grandma and I told her some of the story, and she suggested I call her up and wish her Happy Thanksgiving (clearly this was Thanksgiving time). So I called Mom to ask for the number, thinking that she would be really pissed at me, like I was going against her wishes by being nice to her mom. She was delighted. Regardless of how you were brought up, you are always tied to your parents, and Mom was forever chasing after Grandma's approval.

When my sister got married last Summer, Mom and Grandma stayed at my house. It was fun in a surreal kind of way. We took Grandma to one of my favorite lunch places and I suggest she have their version of the ruben sandwich. She hated it because it wasn't traditional. I offered to get her something else, or at least ask for something to spruce the sammy up. She decided to just remain passive-aggressive and keep the sandwich, all the while complaining about it. It got kind of funny after awhile, because I got to flip her so much crap about it. I finally told her that if she wasn't going to let us make her happy then she could at least stop making us unhappy.

She was funny when she came over, we laughed a lot. She seemed so frail and had an oxygen tank with her. She couldn't use the stairs to get to our spare bed in the basement, so we had to make do with an airbed in the backroom. Sometime around 5 am I heard her calling, "Help!" She was uncomfortable in the bed and tried to get up on her own, but couldn't, so she crawled to the couch to try to get up on it. She couldn't get up on that either, and so was stuck sitting under a fan blowing cold air all over the place. She told us she was there the whole night, although I tend to think that time might have just seemed slow, sitting there on the floor in just a nightie.

Later on the Hub wondered why she didn't just crawl over to our bedroom door and get us up. It certainly would have ruined the story.

Late yesterday afternoon, Grandma was found in her apartment, unconscious. Taken to the hospital, doctors speculated on a heart attack. According to her wishes (via living will), she was taken off life support and the vigil started. She died shortly after 5:30 this morning, her sons and daughters by her side. She was a horrible woman. She was a great woman. She made all of us possible, tearing off in our different directions in life.

Now I have no grandparents and it is an extremely strange feeling. I know later on today I will go in to work and have to pretend to many people that something extraordinary didn't just happen. I guess, really, it isn't that extraordinary, people die all the time, this just happens to be personal.

I feel the most for Mom, who will probably never know if she was truly loved by her own mother. However, this tragedy seems to be knitting us all a little tighter. More than likely I will get to make the sojourn to Idaho for the funeral sometime this week, where I will see cousins I haven't seen since 1988. This also means I get to go get a new black dress. Since I have been putting of buying new work clothes, seems like the right time. Now, Grandma, if you worked this out correctly, my staff will be thanking you, as the meeting on Monday will likely be cancelled along with the test they were about to take.

In the ideal world, Grandma is now at the card table, surrounded by men and the perfect ruben. Hopefully it has enough Russian dressing.

Posted by kerewin at April 10, 2004 07:39 AM