Home

When my Grandma was in the nursing home, my Grandpa used to drive up to see her twice a day.  I imagine that he knew the route with his eyes closed and he counted off the hours in the day to first visit, then second visit.  We all worried about the toll it was taking on him - at this point, she was suffering from Alzheimer's and had various degrees of awareness of why she was there and not at home, or when she could go home, or even who he was.

Can you imagine visiting your wife twice a day and often having to tell her, twice a day, that no, I'm sorry... I can't take you home with me?

At one point, my mom asked my Grandpa if he wanted to go with her to Florida and take a break and go golfing.  She wanted him to have some "me-time", to do something he absolutely loved doing.  My Grandma was in good hands - my mom is one of 4, and everyone was ready to be all hands on deck.  I was in college when my mom told me this story and his response has been burned on my heart ever since.  She asked him to go to Florida, and he said:

"No, Shari, no thanks. I don't even want to go to Wal-mart if your mom can't go with me."

When my Grandma passed away in March of 2005, we all wondered how my Grandpa would fare.  He was healthy, independent, mobile and totally with it - not something all 84 years old can claim.  But we knew he would have traded all of that just to go home with Grandma.

My Grandpa stayed in good health for most of the last 6 years.  Until about 14 months ago, he still lived in his house, drove his car, and some days even still visited the nursing home my Grandma had spent her final years in.  It wasn’t until he had a heart attack in January of 2010 that he showed any signs of his physical body catching up to his calendar years.

On a Rochester-cold December day, in 2009, I met him for a breakfast date at Denny’s.  I had driven down to Geneseo to meet him, the half way point between my parent's house in Pittsford and his house in Fillmore.  He drank an endless cup of black coffee and ate half of an English muffin, I downed a diet coke and some scrambled eggs.

"How did you meet Grandma?" I asked.  I don’t remember what we had been talking about before then, but I wanted to ask that question and the moment was right. 

Quite some time passed while story after story fell out of his mouth and he alternated peering into his coffee cup or staring off into the distance - watching the movie unfold in his head as if it was yesterday, and giving me the play by play.  He told me how they met, about their courtship and of course, his proposal.  He shared stories of how once they were married, she was always late to meet him anywhere because she’d stop to talk to someone in the grocery store or church parking lot and lose track of time as she would slowly unfold a stranger’s life story.  “What took you so long?” he would ask her, knowing what the answer was. 

After about an hour, he realized where he was and looked at me with an almost bashful look to him.  "How did you get me talking about this?" he asked, a little embarrassed and a little bit wistful..  My heart was full with stories, and I knew I couldn't press my luck any farther so I just grinned and shrugged.  I tried to steal the check from him (he wouldn't let me) and hugged him hard in the parking lot and told him to drive the speed limit.

He chuckled to himself as he got in the car, which I knew meant he would not.

I have so many precious memories of my Grandpa, but this is the one that I have played over and over to myself in the last few days since my mom called me with the news.

I think of that wistful look he had in his eyes as he recounted to me seeing my Grandma for the first time  and I can only imagine that they're exchanging those glances again as if it was their first time seeing one another.  Their marriage was what every good marriage should be – a friendship, an equal partnership (a rarity in the 1950s), and genuine, sincere love for one another. 

I feel sad for myself, that I’ll never get to hug him and feel his scratchy beard on my check, or listen to a voice mail where he tells me to say hello to “that good Methodist boy you married” or see him flipping pancakes on the Coleman stove of their Airstream trailer.  I am sad that my brother won’t have anyone to give a carton of Whoppers to at Christmas for the first time in 33 years.  That my sister won’t get to have him proudly walk down the aisle at her wedding, shaking hands with people as if he was a celebrity. That he won’t see my 4 cousins graduate college, get married and turn into the amazing grown ups they are already becoming.  I am sad that my mom, her sister and her 2 brothers have lost their Dad, a sadness I can’t even really permit myself to imagine.

But after I wade through this sorrow, there’s an incredible sense of peace and overwhelming happiness because I know my Grandpa is exactly where he wants to be: home, with my Grandma. 

And imagine the first thing she will say to him is, “What took you so long?”

Grandpa { 2.18.21 – 5.17.11 }

{Christmas 2004 with Grandma & Grandpa}

Stuff

Garage sales aren’t for wussies.

But I love them.  I love cleaning out closets, I love thinking that stuff I no longer have any need or want for will find a new home, and of course, I love making some extra moola.  I was very thankful my mom was here to help me – we spent Friday night in the sweltering heat of my garage setting up and pricing.  Saturday morning, I rolled the door up early – 6:15 am – to drag some things out on to the driveway and the first car pulled up at 6:37 am.  6:37!

The sale was listed to start at 8 am.  But you know what?  I love early birds.  We had the most business from 7am-8am, and then again from 10:45am-11 am while we were packing up.  In fact, one lady made out like a bandit with a bag I had ready to go to Goodwill.  I’ve always heard people say that clothes don’t sell at garage sales, but the two we have had down here in NC, I haven’t found that to be the case.  I always wonder if I’m going to be walking around Wal-mart one day and see someone rocking some of my former duds.

We wrapped up by 11 and dropped off the leftovers at Goodwill by noon.  It’s nice to have my guest bedroom back – I had twenty boxes of “garage sale” stuff piled up in there for almost 2 months getting ready.  Doesn’t it amaze you when you start getting ready for a garage sale (or when you go to move) how much stuff we seem to continuously acquire?  I pride myself on regular trips to Goodwill, consigning or Craigslisting but I am still continuously boggled by the amount of stuff we own.

Which is interesting, considering a conversation my mom had with a neighbor across the street before the sale.  He’s an antiques dealer, with a garage packed full of goodies, so of course he had to come over the night before and see if I had anything worth anything.  (I didn’t.  Because the world didn’t end in 2000, so my Y2K Beanie Baby is not worth the millions my 18 year old self had hoped it to be.)  He and my mom were discussing the kinds of things he sold, and he commented how much the antique world had changed since he got his start in 1982.  He was talking about the phases of collecting he’s seen, and in particular mentioned baskets.  Oh my gosh, BASKETS.  I can remember my mom going through a basket stage.  She even took a basket making class.  She was so into baskets.  Anyways, he and my mom were saying how people today don’t really collect like they used to, and they have less interest in family pass-downs. 

I know this to be true.  My mom recently cleaned out my grandma and grandpa’s home, where they resided for 63 years.  She texted me to ask if there was anything I wanted.  I haven’t been in their home since my Grandma’s funeral in 2005, so I had a hard time remembering anything that was there, so I just asked her for some sewing notions.  She brought me a few sewing notions, and a cookbook notebook in my Grandma’s hand and a book of poetry written by my Great-Grandfather.  And that was the perfect amount of stuff.  I’m certain there were so many things she put her hands on before putting them in a box – to be put in her basement, to go to Goodwill, to go to her garage sale – and held a particular memory in her hand in that moment.  But what to do with all that stuff?  She and her siblings homes are full, and their children (myself, my siblings and cousins) are of the Pottery Barn generation: neutral palates, less is more surfaces and maybe one or two interest pieces – a fabric covered last name letter, a few hardcover books, maybe a framed portrait - per room.  No tchotckes in curio cabinets for us.

But we still acquire and we certainly do accumulate en masse. We preserve the memories in jpeg formats, in blog posts, in facebook status.  We acquire facebook friends, Twitter followers, and external hard drives to hold the 800 digital pictures we took on one vacation.  (This post is not self-reflective at all.)  Our shelves may be mostly bare, but our drawers are filled with boxes of chargers and cords and software discs, the remnants of the shiny new whatevers. 

I imagine that growing up in a time when stuff was not as cheap and plentiful as it can be today (see: Wal-mart) made the acquisitions of possessions a careful and deliberate process, and the parting with said possessions done with even greater care and consideration.  My grandparents, who lived through a Great Depression we can’t even begin to fathom, probably saved every item they spent their hard earned dollar to acquire. 

Meanwhile, I am practically impulsive in my willingness to Ebay an item, but will give excruciating consideration to deciding to un-friend someone on Facebook, even if they are the friend of a friend I met at wedding, got along with great under the guise of too much chardonnay and have never spoken to since.  (Call me!  We’ll do lunch!  Someday!)  

I guess what I’m trying to say (in my always so succinct fashion) is that the desire to acquire and to keep must be part of human nature; it is simply the means of doing so that varies from generation to generation.  My grandparents saved every material possession they owned.  I saved every IM conversation I had in college.  Is there a difference?  Does “don’t let the things you own, own you” apply to packrats and hoarders alone, or does it apply to my digital generation, smug at their sparsely decorated apartments, while hastily saving every moment in an 140 character blast?

While you think about that one, I’m going to finish backing up my blogs about July 2010.  My grandkids might want these one day.

Who Says You Can't Go Home?

Why is it so fun to take people to the place you grew up? You know no one gets as excited as you do about seeing your elementary school playground or the first place you ever bought wine with a fake ID, yet you still get that welling of pride as you show off the many facets of your old stomping ground. Maybe it's because we each have a story we want to tell about our lives, and visits to our hometown provide illustrations and references points that mere words and descriptions don't sufficiently bring to life.

This weekend Matt and I went home to Rochester along with a number of our other college friends for a wedding of a college friend who happened to grow up in the same city as I did. While a trip to Rochester, NY doesn't hold quite the same anticipation as a trip to the Big Apple or Windy City or City of Angels might, I do believe that beautiful Rochvegas did not disappoint my fellow travelers. (Either that, or they are simply too kind.) Rochester in the fall is simply beautiful too - especially if you are traveling north from the still-humid Southern states!

The wedding was a fantastic affair, made better by the reunion of friends who slept, ate and studied in close proximity for almost 4 years. The boys have a bond that has transcended the space that naturally fills in when friends graduate and go their separate ways. It is encouraging to see that their rapport picks up immediately wherever they last left off. In other words, they physically and verbally demolish one another immediately upon reconvening. Nothing like it.

We are defined not only by the landmarks we grew up around, but the people who populated those spaces with us. While I loved seeing my husband and his friends light up with each other's company, the highlight of my trip home was time spent with my Grandpa. What strikes me as odd is that in 26 years of my life, this was the first time I have hung out solo with my grandpa. I guess this isn't totally unusual, as most of my trips to see home would have been with family. Over an endless cup of Denny's coffee, I grew bold enough to ask all the questions about my grandmother I wish I had asked while she was alive. The stories of her childhood that he could recall, to the moment he saw her, the first years of their marriage. My version of my grandmother's life starts in 1982 and while every grandchild would love to assume they are the center of their grandparent's universe, I have always wondered what the 58 years of her life leading up to my entrance, stage right, entailed. Grandpa, fueled by caffeine and an English muffin, did not disappoint. Hearing descriptions of people I have never heard of who shaped my Grandma's life in her late 20s (my age now) as she met, married and mothered reminded me that I am part of a world so much greater than I but part of a family so tightly woven together. There is simply no way to get lost in a world where you are grounded by a family so dear, friends so genuine and a endearing love for the places that have witnessed these relationships.

Who says you can't go home?