Of course, I understand that she was my mother's mother. But her role in my world was as MY grandmother. I see that in my children and I encourage it. When will grandma come to visit ME? they ask. They have no awareness of the way families shift and change. Of the relationships that were before they were. Of their presence as the origin of grandmother versus mother versus sister or wife or aunt.
My grandmother lost a child when he was eight years old. By then, she had three other children, my mother and her two younger brothers, who lost a brother. I didn't understand that fact as more than a simple fact until I had children and I'm still not sure that I really understood until I had friends that lost children. That's when I became aware of my grandmother as a shattered, grieving mom in her late twenties with three children to raise. That's when I could look at Quinn and Saige and Nate and understand what it would mean for their lives - for their entire lives - to lose Garrett now. That's when I asked my mom, do you remember? And she said, I remember the sirens the day he died. I think mom expected his death, he was so sick, but she didn't expect it that day.
Who could ever cease to hope for one more day?
My grandmother knitted and crocheted and cross-stitched. She made beautiful things with her hands. She passed that on to me - her love of pretty stitches - and I spent a decade counting careful crossed stitches, creating rich scenes from tiny exes. I never sat in front of the TV with my hands idle. There are nights that I regret the loss of that hobby to this one, the lack of anything tactile and handmade and beautiful to show for my nights' toils.
A small, square package sat on the porch the other day and I somehow noticed it before I released Hampton Noodle out the door and he mauled it. The return address was my aunt and uncle's address in Arizona. The house was quiet, another miracle. I pulled the scissors out of a drawer and opened the box with great curiosity. Though we exchange cards and notes, I have never received a box from my aunt before.
Inside, nestled in a single piece of tissue paper, was a large, colorful stack of crocheted wool mittens and hats in deep browns and blues, made for my aunt's four children by my grandmother's hands. My little ones live in a warm climate, my aunt wrote, so I thought perhaps your children would like to wear them. My eyes filled with tears as I thought of the generations of love it took - it takes - to make our little family. How the mothering of my grandmother, learned from the mothering of my great-grandmother (learned from her mother whom I didn't know) taught my mother to raise children and so on to me. I thought of all the ways that these chains of security and safety and patience and bonding and love can be broken, intentionally or unintentionally - death, mental illness, poverty, addiction, war, natural disasters - and how so often, we survive it all, our love for our mothers and our ability to motherlove in tact. I thought of how holding these soft, worn, tangible pieces of that love in my hands is more than any book I could ever read, any class I could ever take, any article on parenting ever written.
Then I showed my children and they squealed and danced and put on and took off and played and screamed at each other because - OH MY GOD, NEW STUFF!! NEW!! STUFF!! FOR US!! When it settled, they asked me, who made this for us again, momma. Everything is for them, the world revolves around them.
My grandma, I told them. Grandma P's mommy. She had four children. And they have nine children. And they have nine children. She lived in Ohio. You never met her, but she kissed Nate last year when momma went to Texas to see her. She made these mittens and hats with her very own hands.
They didn't get it, but some day they will. Just like some day they'll understand why I write these words with the same loving care. Because there are many ways to make things with your hands and with your heart. And we shouldn't forget it.
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