Remembering Grandma

Grandma was tough…especially when pursuing something she thought was right, such as keeping a clean house. She was so intense that she didn’t understand it when others would make observations about her “spunk” or determination. She thought it was normal.

I’ll never forget the morning Grandpa decided to carry the trap outside the shed…before removing the skunk.

It looked like a direct hit from my vantage point.

My eyes started watering just standing next to him. So I told Grandpa I’d take care of the skunk if he wanted to go change.

He walked across the garden, up the steps, across the back porch, and into the house.

No sooner had the door clicked shut behind him…but it flew open again, and Grandma marched forth, holding a Wal Mart sack that apparently contained the clothing Grandpa had so recently been wearing. She didn’t slacken her pace until she deposited it in the garbage can.

After Grandpa’s heart attack, she fiercely guarded his diet—no more ice cream, bacon and eggs, bear claws, peanuts. Grandpa had to settle for passing out sugar free candy to the grandkids. She sweetened jam with fruit juice concentrate and thickened it with tapioca.

Down at John’s Thrift, later John’s Foods, Grandma cared intensely about every detail and she had high expectations of her coworkers. After David Baergen worked at the store, nobody else measured up. “He was such a good worker,” she’d say.

On one occasion when my parents left my sister and I with our grandparents for a week, Grandma convinced me my baseball cap would cause my ears to permanently stick out. So I struck a deal with her…and started wearing my ears inside my cap.

She always fixed plenty of food. “You better have some more,” she’d say, handing me the casserole for the fourth time. Oddly enough, she seemed to approach recipes in somewhat the way a jazz musician approaches sheet music—as a starting point for variation.

Every morning, somewhere between singing and chanting, she’d greet you with “Good morning to you!” When Grandpa would talk about getting old, she’d say, “Age is a state of mind.” She usually smiled, but she believed it.

She talked about the need for a “moment-by-moment” relationship with God, and she prayed for her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren to really know God, not just about God.

As her body failed her in the last several years of her life. She experienced the physical suffering and the emotional pain of not being able to serve people or express herself. Even then you’d sometimes hear her praying, “Oh, God, help us.”

I’ll never forget watching my Mom and Grandma pray together as another of their weekly visits came to a close. Grandma hunched over in her wheel chair, Mom putting her arm around Grandma’s rounded shoulders, both of them crying. Crying because they were parting for another week, crying because of the pain they felt, crying because they felt each others’ pain. Because when Grandma’s strength failed, there was one place she turned.

Thanks Grandma.