In Loving Memory

I’ve always known that late night phone calls bear nothing but bad news, but I was soon about to discover that the same rules applied to early morning phone calls as well . . .

         I examined myself in the bathroom mirror as I released the wide-barreled curling iron from a lock of my shoulder-length blonde hair. It was a hopeless situation – my hair wasn’t going to do anything this morning. In angry frustration, I set the styling tool down on the white porcelain vanity top, and rummaged through my overflowing makeup bag to find something suitable with which to tie my stubborn hair back.

         “Will nothing go right this morning?” I wondered. “First my alarm doesn’t go off and I oversleep, then Jamie leaves me the crumbs from the cereal box to eat for breakfast, and now my hair won’t cooperate!”

         I glanced down at the face of my digital watch as I heard the old rotary phone ring softly next door in my parent’s bedroom. The angry green numbers glared 6:15 back at me.

         “Awfully early for someone to be calling.” I mused. “Probably one of my sister’s friends asking for a ride to school.”

         I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly and resumed my vain effort to make my hair look presentable.

         A few minutes later, I heard a gentle rapping at the bathroom door. Startled, I opened the door a crack. My gaze fell upon the haggard figure of my father standing in the darkened hallway, grasping our steel colored portable phone in his hand.

         “Telephone, Jennifer,” he said, inclining his head to indicate the object in his outstretched hand. “It’s your mom.”

         I shuddered involuntarily as a cold chill passed down my spine. My mom had spent the last few weeks in her childhood hometown in Indiana, taking care of my grandmother as she battled leukemia. Within the past couple of days, Grandma had taken a turn for the worse and had landed back in the hospital. It was too much to hope for that my mom was calling to tell me that my grandma had recovered and was being sent home, especially considering the sympathetic expression I glimpsed on my dad’s face.

         “Hello?” I questioned warily, as I pressed the phone to my ear.

         “Jen?” I heard. “It’s mom.”

         The shakiness in my mother’s normally warm, confident voice confirmed my fears.

         “Honey,” my mother continued, “grandma’s not doing so well. You, Jamie, and your dad are going to drive up to Marion this evening after you get out of school, but we don’t know how long your grandma’s going to make it and I wanted to give you a chance to say goodbye.”

         Goodbye? How was I supposed to say goodbye to someone as precious as my grandma, my most cherished relative outside of my own dear mother? Ever since she and my grandpa got divorced seven years ago, my grandma had become a major part of my life, spending nearly every summer with my family in our home in the suburbs of Chicago.

         Grandma would send me and my sister off to swim team practice early each summer morning with a friendly wave, as she sat down at our kitchen table eating oatmeal and sipping tea. Jamie and I would return home to the sounds of my grandma playing along with the contestants of The Price Is Right.

         “One dollar, Bob!” she would yell at the television as the participants gave the silver-haired host their bids for the offered merchandise.

         Jamie and I would bring our bowls of cereal into the family room, snuggle next to Grandma on the plush blue couch, and alternately cheer and groan along with her as contestants would get lucky or lose on the game show.

         My grandma’s love of games and gambling was reflected in the activities she chose to lead my sister and me in to occupy our time until my mom came home from work each afternoon. Most often she would break out her favorites, Bingo and Yatzee, and we would wile away the afternoons rolling for small straights and listening intently as my grandma told us fantastic tales about the superstitious ladies she played Bingo with back home and the times she had won the jackpot.

         But Grandma was more than simply a playmate for me and my sister. We spent many summer afternoons huddled around the kitchen table drinking tall glasses of Kool-Aid as Grandma shared with us her memories of growing up during the Great Depression. I admired her hard work ethic, strength of character, and the resilient bond of love she shared with her family members that was reflected in her stories. Anything I had to share with her about my own childhood angst and drama paled in comparison with her tales of her simple, honest experiences, but she listened with a ready ear and knowing smile all the same.

         Christmas, just a few weeks away, would be difficult without Grandma to share it with my family. Like summer, Grandma had spent the holiday with my family nearly every year since she and Grandpa divorced. Days before Christmas would arrive, my mom, grandma, sister and I would begin a Christmas cookie baking frenzy that would fill the house with the rich, inviting aroma of chocolate, cinnamon, and peanut butter. Inevitably, my grandma would get a mischievous glint in her soft green eyes and throw a handful of flour at one of us. Each of us in turn would retaliate until we were all covered head to toe in snow-colored powder and my father, perturbed by our blatant waste of baking supplies, would call a halt to our fun.

         After church and an informal Christmas Eve supper, we would all huddle in front of a roaring fire with mugs of steaming hot chocolate to read Christmas stories and sing carols. A favorite song of ours was “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” We had written each verse on a note card and my dad would divide them up so each of us would have a few lines to sing solo. I don’t know how he did it, but somehow my dad always managed to give my grandma the Eleven Pipers Piping card, as this was the one line she couldn’t seem to sing correctly. She would get so tongue tied that the verse would come out “eleven peepers popping” or some other such nonsense, and she would laugh so hard that her breath would come out in gasps and tears would flow down her wrinkled cheeks. Inevitably, she’d have the rest of us in the same state of disarray as her, so tickled were we by her hilarious antics.

         “Jennifer,” said my mother, her gentle voice calling me out of my reminiscing. “I’m going to put grandma on the phone. She’s been given morphine, so she won’t be able to really talk, but she’ll be able to understand what you are saying.”

         I heard the sound of muffled voices, as the phone was transferred to my grandma.

         “Grandma?” I croaked. All I could hear on the other line was ragged, wheezing breaths. “I . . . I love you,” I stammered. It was all I could say to her before I felt tears begin to well up in my eyes.

         No, I can’t cry. I have to be brave, I have to be strong for her. What was it that grandma had said to me when she first got sick?

         It had been the first time I had seen her in the hospital. The warm yellow sunlight from the open blinds had streamed onto her pale, fragile form lying propped up in the hospital bed. The sight astounded me. What had happened to my grandma, a woman formerly so full of life and vitality?

         Overcome with emotion, I had dropped to my knees by her bedside and weeped into the pristine white sheets. A look of compassion and gentleness passed over my grandma’s worn features. She grasped my hands with one of her bony, but surprisingly strong ones, and with her other hand wiped away the hot, salty tears from my cheeks.

         “No more tears, child,” Grandma had crooned. “Only happy faces from now on. We’ve got to be strong for each other.”

         No, being strong or brave wasn’t possible any longer, not as my grandma lay dying four hours away and I couldn’t even hold her hand while the Lord took her from this life to the next. I gave into the tears of sorrow and allowed my father to pull me to his side and wrap my in his strong, comforting arms.

         Betty Louise Bryant died on December first, 1999 at 7:39 a.m. To some she was merely a name or a face, but to me she was my friend and confidant, a teller of tales and bearer of laughs. She was my grandma. Though the memories I have of her will never fully replace my grandma’s physical presence in my life, I hold them dear to me as a daily reminder of the woman who had such a great and lasting impact on my life.