Pork Chops and Fried Potatoes

To say that Grandma raised me is both, an overstatement and an understatement.  I spent a great deal of time with her growing up, but not enough time after I had…

Although I wouldn’t fully realize it until I got older, Grandma was a very small woman.  She seemed frail and thin, but that was deceitful.  As a child I would hug her so hard I would get scared and let go for fear that I was hugging this frail-seeming woman too hard.  She would pretend I had hurt her… and then all of a sudden she would put her arms around me and hug me back even harder… all the while smiling and giggling with closed eyes.  She was only 4’9” or so, but when asked, she would claim to be 4’11”.  Maybe at one time she was because I can’t believe that Grandma would ever lie about anything…at least not without her telltale giggle to let you know it was a fib, or white lie, as she liked to say. 

This is one of the things she taught me when I was a little girl.  It is a sin to lie, but you can tell a white lie if it’s little and inconsequential in the bigger scheme of things. The choice is up to you, but it is also a responsibility that you own.

She also had an odd sense of humor.  Once, she very quietly and seriously told me it was a sin to pass gas,or rather, it wasn’t a sin to do it; you just had to be quiet about it, or take it elsewhere and never let anyone know you had done it.

When she told me this, I exhausted any questions I had about the intricacies of this “religious” rule.  I was well into my early teens before I questioned and realized it really wasn’t a sin!  Until then I harbored a belief that I would probably burn in hell.

I wasn’t a naive child … unless it was anything my grandmother told me.  And you can bet, during my childhood years I never once embarrassed her in church on Sunday, which very well may have been the point.  Plus, I think she knew I would always think about it and laugh at the memory when I grew older.

Grandma was the big person in my life, stature aside.  Just saying her name made me feel better…Grandma…..  Her attention, when no one else seemed to care, inspired me to be a better person then, and it still does.  She was the major adult influence in my life.  She was my teacher and example.  We spent as much time together as we could.

I was about 6 years old when she had me remember her phone number, by heart, and I still remember it: Juniper 6-5476. I chanted it over and over again so I wouldn’t forget.  I was so excited to use it the very first time and it felt like magic when I heard her voice at the other end and realized I could do this any time I wanted to hear her voice.  It comforted me.  We talked every day.  It became a habit.  We were still calling each other like this until she passed.

I loved to stay with her.  She would read to me.  She would try to play with me.  She let me plunk on the piano in her living room while she did her daily housework, or she would give me bologna to bait the hook of my bamboo fishing rod.  I could fish in the large pond in the front of the home my grandfather had built just for her. I was allowed to draw, build things with the woodpile in the garage or watch “telebision”…and she participated in it all, if I asked.

She taught me to respect everyone and every living thing.  One morning I wanted to go outside but she told me I couldn’t which was odd.  Knowing I was afraid of snakes she didn’t want to scare me, but finally, over my protests to go outside she had to tell me.  There was a black snake on the front porch.  When I asked her to get rid of it she just smiled and told me, “Oh, he’s just sunnin' his self gettin’ warm.  Leave him be and he’ll go away when he’s done."

She had a large painting that hung over the piano.  A young boy and girl playing the violin and piano together.  I used to stare at that painting for hours while Grandma did her housework.  I thought the young girl was my mom and kept asking who the boy was.  Grandma had to finally explain to me one day that it wasn’t.  This painting hangs in my study today because it now reminds me of my grandmother.  I asked her for it and she gave it to me.

She cooked special dishes of food just for me… all the things I loved to eat.  All I had to say was, “Grandma, I’m hungry…” and food would be cooked and MY special plate would be full.  This is where I learned table manners, and conquered anemia.

My favorite food was boiled cabbage with ham and potatoes.  When she knew I was coming for a long visit she would cook up a big pot ahead of time.  I could eat it every day for lunch and dinner if I wanted…on MY special plate.  Looking back, this may have been another reason she taught me about "the sin"…

On Sundays we went to church, then to the local hospital cafeteria where she could get pork chops and fried potatoes, her favorite meal.  At home she had to cook bland foods for my grandfather who was riddled with stomach ulcers.  In later years, when my grandfather’s ulcers were in check, she added this to the menu she cooked, but only on Sundays.

She also taught me how to pick blackberries from the bushes in her yard.  She would make wonderful things with them, including blackberry cobbler.  I was always puzzled by the name “cobbler”, and it was one thing that Grandma was never able to explain to me.  I still just think of it as a messy pie.  I loved watching her cook and bake.

I was also baffled watching her make fruit preserves…”…why does there have to be wax on top”, I wanted to know?  When she explained that it was called paraffin, I didn’t understand and for a long time tried to figure out why she was calling wax a “pair of fins”. I still didn’t know why it went on top of the preserves, either.

But, one of the most important things I learned from Grandma was “The Golden Rule”.  “Do unto others…” She taught me to say the whole line.  She explained it, and then she repeated it so often to me it still pops into my mind regularly.  Probably not often enough, but it’s in my heart because of her.

I learned so many things from her.  They are basic things to me now, but they are things that helped me be independent when I needed to be and cleared room for me to be open to bigger challenges in my life.

Grandma was fearless. In her last years, living alone in a bad neighborhood she heard someone rattle the doorknob on the front door of her house late one evening.  She crept into the dark living room and rapped her knuckles on the front door, from the inside.  There was a pause, and then she heard heavy feet turn and walk, rapidly, down her front steps.  When I asked her if she called the police, she told me no.  She had waited a few more minutes, flipped on the front lights and had a glass of warm milk before going to bed.

She was my best friend.  She gave me the ability to imagine if I wanted something badly enough and was willing to work hard and commit myself, it might be mine, and even if I didn’t achieve the ultimate goal, I was so much farther ahead than when I started.  She was proud of my stubbornness, unless she was on the other side of it, which wasn’t often.

When she became ill and was hospitalized I made sure I was at her bedside when they wheeled her in from surgery.  She was still under the anesthetic, but as soon as I saw her blink her eyes I had to anxiously tell her, “Grandma, it’s me…I love you…”  I held her hand.  I could tell she was struggling, but then I heard, and can still hear, faintly, “I love you, too, Diana”.  She was still so far under she could barely close her lips, and then, still faintly, “I reckon I’ve loved you since the day you was born…”  With that, I let her rest.

I would have her in my life another 6 years before she was finished teaching me. 

Her birthday is November 5th, and every year around this time I always make pork chops, and fried potatoes and feast to celebrate my good fortune to have had her presence in my life for as long as I did.