I didn't realize how much of my house is an ode to my grandmother until she died.
Today, after writing her obituary and helping my parents bag her clothes and shoes, I walked through the door to find my china cabinet screaming her name - from the two sets of Lenox china I inherited from her and my grandfather, teacups stacked, to the fawn figurine that looks like something she and my grandfather might have had in their living room on Windsor Drive. In the bedroom, very near the bed, is her embroidered stool. On my refrigerator are black and white photos of my grandparents and my uncles, almost obsessively everywhere. On a shelf in the living room, a gold framed photo of my grandmother holding my father as a baby. By the front door, a framed set of two photos on the wall of my grandparents from the day they got engaged, presumably 1952. I had come across the images as slides while digging through old photo albums at one point in time, and when I lived in Seattle I had taken them to a shop, turned them into prints, and have carted them with me ever since.
My grandmother was a difficult woman to communicate with. She had lost her hearing pretty badly several years ago and used hearing aids, but it was difficult communicating over the telephone when she lived in California. I would call her each year on her birthday. I would write her letters, but now I wish I had written her more. I will never forget calling her on the morning of my wedding, telling her how much I loved her and how my most vivid memory of her and my grandfather had been collecting leaves on the sidewalk on Windsor Drive. I don't know why I decided to thank her for that memory on that particular day, but I did. And I cried, and she could hear me.
When we moved to Washington in 1991, I can remember waving goodbye to my grandparents from the inside of the moving truck. There were many visits, many day trips, restaurants, news on all the ladies my grandmother called "The Club Girls." My grandmother knew how to wear red lipstick. In most photographs, she is not smiling. There was something intimidating about her, yet she, like me, kept up with all the people in her life and forged friendships that lasted for what seemed like multiple lifetimes. There was fierce loyalty. There was love and pride for her family. When I look around my house now, I see her everywhere. There is no possibility that my love for antiques could have come from anywhere but years of shopping with my grandparents, in the longing I have for that house on Windsor Drive. Nothing made my grandmother happier than having everyone together at the house. No celebration was too much. Perhaps I've inherited that from her as well.
You should have seen the look on her face when you were born, my mother said. Last week, when I went to visit my grandmother, her eyes were closed. She was sleeping and appeared to be dreaming. I could see her eyes shift beneath the lids. I held her hand and she would not wake up. I didn't know it then, but she had already suffered a stroke and I would not see her eyes open again. I've got to believe that although she loved her children and grandchildren more than anything else on earth, the look on her face this morning while surveying her eternal home must have knocked it out of the park.
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Today, after writing her obituary and helping my parents bag her clothes and shoes, I walked through the door to find my china cabinet screaming her name - from the two sets of Lenox china I inherited from her and my grandfather, teacups stacked, to the fawn figurine that looks like something she and my grandfather might have had in their living room on Windsor Drive. In the bedroom, very near the bed, is her embroidered stool. On my refrigerator are black and white photos of my grandparents and my uncles, almost obsessively everywhere. On a shelf in the living room, a gold framed photo of my grandmother holding my father as a baby. By the front door, a framed set of two photos on the wall of my grandparents from the day they got engaged, presumably 1952. I had come across the images as slides while digging through old photo albums at one point in time, and when I lived in Seattle I had taken them to a shop, turned them into prints, and have carted them with me ever since.
My grandmother was a difficult woman to communicate with. She had lost her hearing pretty badly several years ago and used hearing aids, but it was difficult communicating over the telephone when she lived in California. I would call her each year on her birthday. I would write her letters, but now I wish I had written her more. I will never forget calling her on the morning of my wedding, telling her how much I loved her and how my most vivid memory of her and my grandfather had been collecting leaves on the sidewalk on Windsor Drive. I don't know why I decided to thank her for that memory on that particular day, but I did. And I cried, and she could hear me.
When we moved to Washington in 1991, I can remember waving goodbye to my grandparents from the inside of the moving truck. There were many visits, many day trips, restaurants, news on all the ladies my grandmother called "The Club Girls." My grandmother knew how to wear red lipstick. In most photographs, she is not smiling. There was something intimidating about her, yet she, like me, kept up with all the people in her life and forged friendships that lasted for what seemed like multiple lifetimes. There was fierce loyalty. There was love and pride for her family. When I look around my house now, I see her everywhere. There is no possibility that my love for antiques could have come from anywhere but years of shopping with my grandparents, in the longing I have for that house on Windsor Drive. Nothing made my grandmother happier than having everyone together at the house. No celebration was too much. Perhaps I've inherited that from her as well.
You should have seen the look on her face when you were born, my mother said. Last week, when I went to visit my grandmother, her eyes were closed. She was sleeping and appeared to be dreaming. I could see her eyes shift beneath the lids. I held her hand and she would not wake up. I didn't know it then, but she had already suffered a stroke and I would not see her eyes open again. I've got to believe that although she loved her children and grandchildren more than anything else on earth, the look on her face this morning while surveying her eternal home must have knocked it out of the park.
