There are, to date, two people in my life I’ve loved so unguardedly that ‘the mere idea of them,’ to paraphrase Nat King Cole (or rather, Ray Noble), can almost instantly reduce to me tears if I’m not careful. My grandma is one of them.
If Papa, Grandma’s husband and the towering influence of my formative years, prized me for what he thought I might become, Grandma loved me unreservedly for what I already was: her daughter’s daughter. She was in her forties when I arrived, the first of her grandchildren, but I was soon joined by accomplices, all of them boys (it would take nearly a decade for the girl-drought to mercifully end). We were as smitten with her as she was with us.
Grandma was a zealous homemaker who timed stationary chores like ironing to coincide with The Young and the Restless. When Papa retired early due to multiple sclerosis, their sparkling-clean house became the center of many family activities. In the summertime we visited several times per week, my brother and cousins disappearing to distant rooms from which crashes and thuds emanated while Grandma and I made fudge, colored Shrinky Dinks and punctured black sheets with Lite-Brite pegs to create our own designs.
Their boisterous weekend dinners were a year-round occurrence, with Grandma’s father in faithful attendance. A widower who never ran out of quarters to pull from our ears or tears to shed for his late wife, his presence made these occasions four-generation affairs. You don’t entirely grasp as a child how special those traditions are, even when your parents point it out to you. As an adult, there’s an almost breathtaking poignancy to memories of family tableaux that can’t be recreated; too many of the principal players are gone. At the heart of it all was Grandma, who prepared army-size quantities of food regardless of the headcount.
Gossiping was one of her chief hobbies, which she engaged in with any woman who was handy. If the grandkids remained within earshot, she conspicuously lowered her voice to a whisper for curses like “bitch,” and she peppered her insults with Yiddishisms that Papa mischievously explained to me. She wasn’t a ravenous reader (unless the author was Belva Plain) and she preferred her roster of soap operas, which also included Another World, to the old movies Papa watched again and again. While she shared his love of show tunes, her CDs were of the Julio Iglesias, Barbra Streisand and Plácido Domingo variety.
Musically, we were united by our love of the Pointer Sisters. (Our Streisand fandom was of different stripes; she preferred the treacly ballads to Barry Gibb collaborations, the Yentl soundtrack or “Lover Come Back to Me.”) According to family lore, I became unusually animated one day as she listened to one of their LPs. It marked the beginning of a tradition: I’d stand at the record player and request “So ‘Cited.” When she complied and the music played, I’d clap in celebration and move my knees around jerkily in a goofy toddler dance. “I’m So Excited” became our anthem, a memory she retained even as Alzheimer’s set in.
In 2017, as my wedding approached, Grandma and I both struggled to stay out of the hospital. I was dealing with a Crohn’s flare and she was plagued by a slow internal bleed of unknown origin. She’d always been there for me, both physically and emotionally, during the worst moments of my childhood, stepping up as my caregiver in and out of the hospital when my parents needed relief. When, a week or so before the wedding, she was admitted again for iron infusions, I told Crankenstein and my mother that I’d rather delay the wedding than have it without Grandma in attendance.
Crankenstein understood but my mom tried to argue against a postponement; she was worried she’d miss the wedding and reception if she had to serve as Grandma’s caregiver. It was a reasonable concern — someone would have to push her wheelchair and help her to the bathroom — and I offered to pay for a health aide and transportation if that would make a difference. Grandma’s position was already clear; she vowed to be there with bells on, even if she had to first escape from the hospital or nursing home.
Her doctor had the deciding vote. He privately told my parents that she probably only had a few months to a year left, and that watching a grandchild marry was exactly the sort of thing she should do with her remaining time. Arrangements were made for a caregiver to accompany her to the wedding and I was told to keep my money. I apologized to her at the reception for dragging her to a church and she laughed and joked that it’s not Crankenstein’s fault she isn’t Jewish.
In Grandma’s final months we visited her often, bringing lunch and listening to the usual complaints about everything from over-salted nursing home food to her good-for-nothing roommate. When she was on her deathbed, Crankenstein and I took turns holding her hand and giving her water via the same sort of sponge swabs that Grandma used to offer me before and after surgery. During a private moment when everyone else was in the hall, I told her what I wanted her to know before she died, just in case she could still hear me. Later that night, when I got the call that she was gone, I played the Pointer Sisters and smiled through my tears.