My husband and I went as Aragorn and Arwen for Halloween this year (geek test: If you just said “Who???” then you are officially not a geek). Like my headband of sliver flowers embedded with red plastic stones? Yep, Nana’s.
Granny panties, size XL, beige, used. They’d arrived in a plain brown envelope accompanied by a single tea towel dated to the ’70’s by the brown mushrooms that covered it. This was hardly what a girl dreams of getting for her all-important 12th birthday and yet there it was. But the worst part wasn’t the suspicious stains (30-year-old coffee grounds or something more sinister?), it was that this was the only present my grandmother ever gave me. She wasn’t demented, not yet anyhow, and this – this package of garbage with my name misspelled on it, to add insult to injury – was the final straw. From that day on I decided I was done with Nana.
It wasn’t hard to do really. Due to a rift in the family that no one quite remembered how it started but had grown infinitely wider over the years, I’d only met her on a few occasions. And I didn’t like her. I had my reasons: Her obvious impatience with children. Her yappy dogs that humped everything and yet were loved more than any human. The overwhelming smell of cigarette smoke that permeated everything about her. The fact I was born one day after her and she never forgave me for usurping some of her glory (the reason I never got any presents, perhaps?). The total absence of cards or phone calls or any other tokens of grandmotherly affection. I told myself that I didn’t miss her – how could I? She was so unknown to me – and yet I deeply missed having a grandmother in my life.
All of my other grandparents died in horribly tragic ways when I was very young. These stories compelled me for years to think my family line was cursed. As uncles and aunts continued to die prematurely – most of them also in horribly tragic ways – I became convinced that no one lived past 60 in my life. (For the record, my father is now 56 and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous.) But not Nana. Despite doing everything “wrong” health-wise, she stubbornly determined to outlive us all through some voodoo combination of mail-order supplements and listening to Art Bell on CRZY radio every night. Indeed, when she did die last month, well into her 80’s, it was not from the effects of being a life-long smoker or being overweight or never exercising but rather from a burst anyeurism in her stomach that took her quickly and painlessly in her sleep, no horrible trauma necessary.
It was her dying that brought her unexpectedly back into my life.
Before Nana’s death my mom and sister, sensing the end was near, went out to visit her one last time. I settled instead for a phone call during which I told her that I loved her and that I hoped she felt better soon, only slightly pained that she didn’t even remember who I was. I’m told that she was quite delightful that last visit. Her Alzheimer’s had made her forget all the reasons she had to be bitter and left her with little else but a warm feeling that made her exclaim euphorically over how beautiful these strange women visiting her were and how much she loved ice cream. My mother and sister were much comforted. I was unaffected. I’d outgrown my childish hatred of her but love hadn’t taken it’s place.
I missed her funeral – a simple graveside service attended by a handful of acrimonious relatives also unsure of their feelings for her. (I wasn’t the only one she alienated.) I meant to go. I bought my plane tickets and arranged babysitting and steeled myself. But then our sewer exploded in our basement inspiring a week’s worth of “crappy” puns and a singular kind of horror that comes from looking around your children’s bedroom and realizing that all the white flecks stuck to everything are actually toilet paper. Which means all the brown sludgy stuff is… yeah. So I didn’t go. I tried my best to remember her but any feeling was overshadowed by more powerful losses.
My mother, tirelessly compassionate on Nana’s behalf, brought all of the old woman’s jewelry to allow everyone to pick a few pieces to remember her by. I knew she wasn’t rich and had a deep fondness for QVC so when my mom presented me with what was left with a wry smile that seemed to say well, there’s no accounting for taste – I didn’t care. The point for me wasn’t to get rich hawking her cubic zirconia but just to find a memento or two that symbolized her title in my life, if not her actual presence. But as I opened up each little box and bag, I found myself increasingly surprised. It was beautiful! And wacky! And unique! And vintage! And even hilariously hideous! I loved it all.
My sister and mom and I talked and giggled. Who on earth would buy such a tacky thing as a gold bejeweled scary-clown brooch? Did she ever really wear it? She had a whole bag of brooches and scarf pins, in fact – a rare find because hardly anyone bothers with them anymore. Every time I go to a thrift store I keep my eye out for them and I hardly ever find any. I kept the whole lot. And then there were all the hand-made pieces – things like earrings made out of spoon handles and intricately beaded chandelier earrings. I kept all of them too. Layered gold-plated necklaces, a huge fake cocktail ring, earrings made out of opals ringed in rhinestones and glued to dangly chains – all loud and gaudy and cheap. All went into my pile.
Every day since my mom gave them to me, I’ve found a reason to wear one or the other of them. Not out of a sense of duty but because I really like them. Today I wore her earrings made out of peacock feathers covered in beads and sparkles and I’ll be darned if they didn’t make me grin every time I looked in the mirror. Nana and I have the same love for costume jewelry. Who knew? It makes me wonder what else I didn’t know about her. What other quirks we might share. What else I could have loved about her. I didn’t try hard enough.
Tonight I looked for a picture of Nana and I together – just the two of us – to put with this post. I don’t have one. I don’t think one exists. And this makes me sad. But, miraculously and thankfully, I don’t believe that death is the end. And when I see her in the next life I’m going to greet her wearing that hideous clown brooch, just so I can ask her about it. (I promise not to even mention the panties. Okay maybe once.)
Do you have someone like Nana with whom you may not have tried hard enough with? Have you ever been surprised by a weird genetic quirk like a love for tacky jewelry?
Darling Charlotte.
This is such a loving and thoughtful post.
…There is a lot for me to ponder in regards to dealing with nasty family members.
There are whole swaths of my genetic code that I wish didn’t exist because they are a link to said family members.
And they’re getting older.
I’ve been thinking for a while now that I need to sit down with a few of them,
talk things over,
heal some wounds.
I don’t know if that can happen this year,
but it needs to.
Soon.
…
Here’s to costume jewelry and making better memories, oui?
Do you have someone like Nana with whom you may not have tried hard enough with?
Interesting question. I have an entire side of my family that I have absolutely nothing to do with. They fell out with Dad decades ago and used my brother & I as pawns. It didn’t work with Dad – he just wrote them off. I got in contact years later, after I left home. One of them tried to play mind games with me, really low stuff, so I decided I didn’t need that in my life and decided not to contact her again. The other one became all upset because I didn’t wish her a happy birthday (I didn’t know it was her birthday) so she stopped talking to me. I figure that’s her prerogative.
I do understand about not having grandparents like other people (or Hollywood !). I never had a grandfather, one died before I was born and the other when I was about 2 and it is strange that I sometimes miss not having had that type of relationship.
Have you ever been surprised by a weird genetic quirk like a love for tacky jewelry?
Not tacky jewelry so much but my niece, who lives a long way away so I don’t see very often, is exactly like me, her mannerisms, her speech, it completely freaks people out 🙂
This is why I love you. Your ability to navigate raw… in the many forms that it takes… from the humorous to the sentimental and heartfelt… and the places inbetween.
As for things that I share… I’d be amiss if I didn’t say that I share my grandmother’s looks. I never met her (she died before my mother was even married, let alone had her second child), but I remember stumbling upon a photograph of her as a child and getting scared because it looked so incredibly like me. I don’t look like pictures of her at my age, however, probably due to my lower weight… but it’s interesting how you can feel so connected to someone based on something such as appearance or costume jewelry… isn’t it?
It pains me to say that my paternal grandfather was a rather unpleasant person, at least to his family (though a popular man-about-town in his strange little social set of misfits). I don’t know what made him so – his difficult childhood, wartime experiences, poverty, living too long in a world which changed around him too much… Whatever, he was very stern and grumpy and something of a chauvinistic bully to his family, and we grandchildren were always a little afraid of him, and then mistrusting on those occasions when he was in a good mood and jovial. (Or maybe just a bit tipsy.)
His mind started to go in his last decade, which left him prone to noticeable mood swings, from pleasantly placid to utterly irrational. But right towards the end, he became such a sweet and gentle old man, always asking after your health (again, and again, and again), and speaking of how important love is. When my mother gave something of a eulogy at the simple family service we held at his passing, that was what she chose to focus on, not the negatives about him which we all already knew too well – she just spoke of how he evolved into kindness and warmth and appreciation of his family.
My grandmother, whom I loved dearly but who also lived far away and I didn’t see much, passed away almost two years ago. She had amazing style all her own and I inherited many fun and interesting accessories from her (who but my grandma could pull off a turquoise necklace with a silver camel pendant attached?) I wear her things often and think fondly of her.
“Do you have someone with whom you may not have tried hard enough with?”
Yep, my dad. My parents got divorced when I was two or three years old. For the first few years, he tried to stay in contact with me, but our meet-ups got fewer and fewer, and when I was in high school, he had already stopped calling or writing, even on my birthday or Christmas. About ten years ago, he suddenly passed away. I didn’t get the chance to say good-bye or ask him why he had given up on me. And I do regret that I didn’t try to talk to him sooner.
I visited my grandparents last summer. They live in Colorado and I have always lived far from there, so the visits are few and far between. After taking care of an old couple with dementia until their dying day, I realized that I really wanted to hear the stories my grandparents had to tell before it was too late. So I recorded hours and hours of interesting stories and started to see my grandparents as these wonderful people who had all these extreme adventures. They had met in Alaska when my grandpa was a railroad worker and my grandma had traveled there with a couple of her girlfriends all the way from Minnesota to work as a waitress! Anyway, my grandma took me on a tour of her closet and jewelry. It looked like a color coordinated Goodwill store! I had to pick out an outfit for her and choose the apropriate jewelry, even repaint her nails in the matching color. In the end, she gave me a super tacky pin and some clip on earrings that I will cherish forever.
see?
this is why you are never allowed to cease writing.
Your ability to navigate and express and SHARE THE RAW which allows us to take a piece away with us.
chew it.
think about it.
apply it to our own lives and process.
life changing writing, Sister.
I only ever knew one of my four grandparents, the rest had passed, and of course she was the grumpy one too. This post makes me think a little about my own children and their relationship with their grandparents and what I might do to further nurture those. They are lucky – they are 3 for 4. One grandfather has chosen to have really no connection whatsoever with them and it’s hard for us all to understand.
I love all your writing but there is something extra special, and honest, and yes, raw, about this piece. Thanks!!
I always felt cheated because my mom’s family lived on the other side of the country, and we rarely saw them. They were the nice ones.
I got stuck living near my dad’s side of the family; they were the mean ones. There was no awareness of child abuse during the years that I grew up. If there was, half of my dad’s family would have been in jail. Not sexual abuse, but “spare the rod, spoil the child” abuse, as well as psychological abuse.
Have you heard the joke: “Being Catholic is having that nagging feeling that someone, somewhere, is having a good time.”? Well, that could have been the family motto. I was spared thanks to my mom putting her foot down, but most of my cousins were not.
Yeesh, now I have these old memories sloshing around my head and I’m feeling angry. I’m going to pound them out of my system at the gym this morning!
This is a topic I think about all time because I have relatives that are just horrific people, yet I wonder, because we are related, if I should make an effort with them. I have a grandmother who blames me for my mother’s death. She told the family I kept my mother’s illness a secret from them all because I wanted her to die. And they believed her! Then when we were all grieving for my mother she got mad at me because I didn’t spend enough time with her (my grandma). Because it’s all about her, didn’t you know? Yeah. With relatives like these, who needs enemies???
I have completely cut my grandmother out of my life. She calls and leave vm messages for me occasionally, trying to guilt me into calling her. But I refuse. I wonder if I will regret this one day. My grandma could also be funny, feisty, and interesting…but I find I just can’t forgive her for her behavior after my mother died. I don’t hate her, not at all, I just can’t see the the point of having a relationship with someone like that.
I have friends who believe that you should always make an effort with family, no matter how horrible they are. But I think life is too short. I don’t need emotionally tortuous relatives in my life.
Is it bad that I guessed LotR before seeing the caption of the picture?
I’m such a nerd.
Tried hard enough with? Maybe. Probably. Okay, I guess so since I don’t talk about it.
It’s interesting how much we learn about people after they leave us, isn’t it?
Love the Halloween picture! The fiance and I were characters from the video game Left 4 Dead last year. I think we might have even you guys beat on the geekiness scale 😀
It makes me sad to hear you say, “I didn’t try hard enough.” My dad’s slightly crazy mother really disliked my mom and blamed her for my dad never moving back to the East Coast. By extension my brother and I never felt much affection from that direction. She passed away when I was in college and for a long time I felt guilty that I never had that relationship. But over the years I’ve come to realize that rather than “I didn’t try hard enough”, she didn’t try hard enough. Does that sound harsh? Maybe. But when you have a child and an adult I think it has to be the adult’s responsibility to make that relationship special. This has made me determined that my hypothetical kids will have a good relationship with their grandparents if it’s the last thing I do though so hopefully some good will come out of it!
I Love YOU forever and like you for Always. Forever and ever my darling you’ll be. I think she thought the used underwear belonged to you. Not sure why she thought so because we almost never went to visit her after she moved so far away from all of us. She simply didn’t keep things that didn’t belong to her. Small solace though for the lack of contact and gifts. When did you figure out I was putting her name on the presents she never sent?
I’ve never commented before, and only recently stumbled upon your blog following a link from Pinterest, but this post caught my attention.
I’m currently not really speaking with my dad’s sister. The situation began after my dad passed away, 15 years ago. My mom remarried about two years after that and my aunt felt that it was too soon. And at the time, I might have agreed with her, but that was because I was a bratty 15-year-old. So it began with my mom & aunt being on chilly terms with my sister & I acting as go-betweens. Every year for Christmas, they would exchange practically identical fruit baskets. It was a bizarre ritual. And then I went away for college and I had a tattoo & I dyed my hair bright red & got my nose pierced. Meanwhile, I maintained a 4.0 that first semester and managed to win several scholarships to help pay for my tuition AND held down 20 hours a week at my job. My sister, on the other hand, had been kicked out of college for her bad grades and was living at home and working two jobs with not much purpose in her life. However, somehow *I* was the “problem child” all of a sudden. “We always thought your sister was the bad one!” And when asked why I didn’t have a boyfriend, my cousin chimed in to ask, “You’re not one of those lesbians, are you?” And I just felt awful. And I came home and told my mother that I would not be going to my aunt’s house again. I stopped getting birthday and Christmas cards from her and I stopped sending them when I never heard back if she received them. But now it’s been almost 10 years and I think maybe it’s time for me to be the bigger person and try to mend the rift. She’s the only family connection I have to my dad and she is not getting any younger. After reading your post, I think I’ve solidified my decision to send her a Christmas card with a nice long letter, filling her in on what’s going on in my life.
(Aragron & Arwen: LOVE IT!!!!!)
I found a lot of common ground and closure with my dad when he was dying. I wish it could have happened earlier, but I’m glad it DID happen.
And I sill feel him around us, so I believe that death is truly a transition, not an end.
Love the photo. Very pretty!
I received costume jewelry and old hankies from my great-grandmother upon my confirmation. She died when I was really young (maybe around 4 or 5? if even that old?). My grandma and uncle kept it, plus a note, for me until I was confirmed. The costume jewelry is actually really pretty. It has faux purple stones and it’s a brushed metal-like substance with some intricate designs for the necklace and clip-on earrings. I always wanted to find a place to wear them, but haven’t yet. They do sit in the jewelry box at my parents’ house now though.
Aww 🙁 Sadly, I’m not close to anyone in my family. My husband’s family is really all I’ve got. When I was 15 my grandmother also gave me her used underwear! It was a corset and panty set, that was probably 40 years old. When I looked at her in disgust she said “oh, I thought you could use it for your dancing!” I don’t know what kind of dancing she thought I did, but ballet certainly does not require a sexy outfit! The icing on the cake was when my mother said “ewww she’s probably had sex in that!” What a lovely family I have…
Love this story Charlotte. For various reasons we’ve had a slew of early deaths in my family too. Everything from suicide to cancer to victims of violence. Every time we lost someone I had more resolve to grow the relationships I had with the people who were still around. I’ve succeeded with some and failed with others.
Having this reminder without experiencing the tragedy is definitely appreciated.
Thank you.
Wow! Wonderfully written story. Good reminder that just because our relatives aren’t who we would like them to be, they are in fact, family. That is so very important.