Another Word for Love

Photo: Petr Kratchovil

My maternal grandmother was a wonderful woman; as was my paternal grandmother, come to that, but today I'm thinking about my mother's mother. She had a sly sense of humor that sometimes surprised those who knew her as a serious and even stern teacher. An example, you ask? Happy to oblige.

In the last weeks of her life she was sometimes too weary to speak and would communicate with gestures or nods or facial ticks. On one such occasion I asked, "Why are you making that face?"

Her voice was hoarse with illness but there was a familar twinkle in her eye when she responded, "What choice do I have? It's the face I was born with."

IDW, Grandma is synonomous with love.

Like most of us, she was full of inherent contradictions. She was every inch a lady but she could -- and often did -- bring Sunday dinner conversations to a screeching halt recounting the always horrific and frequently gory details of whatever murder or other violent crime she might have found in the day's headlines. She had a reputation as something of a pessimist who scopelocked on the negative rather than focusing on the positive.

Though I disliked her grisly stories and wish she'd taken more delight in the Sunday comics, I never found her to be negative. In fact, she was one of the most loving and positive influences in my life. She lavished her time and attention on me and my siblings and nurtured us in every conceivable way. She opened her home to our friends. She baked cakes for us. She baked cakes for her neighbors, too, to say thank you or I'm sorry for your loss or just I love you. Her dining room cabinet bore the photos of children none of us knew -- the children of some of her many students. Long after she retired, she continued to tutor and, at her funeral, many many people told those of us in her family how she had impacted their lives in the most positive way imaginable.

When I feel blue or discouraged, it usually lifts me just a little to think of her and imagine her listening to me in her patient way. She was judicious about dispensing advice, but she was a great listener. And if you tired of talking, she told great stories -- and not all of them macabre! And I also remember a poem that hung on my grandmother's refrigerator for as long as I can remember. But guess what?! You have to come back tomorrow to get it! (What?! You were coming back anyway, right? RIGHT?!)

Hey, Grandma was a lady and I learned from her what all ladies and the best of entertainers know: Always leave 'em wantin' more!

So until tomorrow, then . . .