GrandmaThe other day, someone said to me, "Katie, I’m so sorry about your grandma dying."I shocked myself, and her, when I replied, "You know what? I’m not, really." Well, I looked up, expecting a lightning bolt from above. When it didn’t come, I set about figuring out why in the world I would have said something like that! This is what I figured out: Life’s events are precious to us precisely because we know they come with a limited warranty. Life ends. It’s evident, though, from man’s desire to build time machines and our secret fascinations with the Psychic Friends Network, that it’s not yet possible to have our cake and eat it too… to have our past and present and future all at the same time. It’s better that way. It allows for our perceptions to change over time, allows us to grow and to learn from each other. It allows grandparents and grandchildren to have different ties than parents and children do - it’s a privileged domain where mistakes are invisible and anger is unknown… and it’s wonderful. We humans still want to have it all, though, and in some ways we CAN have it all, and more. We have memory, to carry the past with us, and we have hope, to visualize our future. There is a Bulgarian saying: Da e vetchna i svetla pametta i. It means "may you celebrate good memories "- to enjoy them, and also to give a good sendoff into the next world. Here are some of my good memories: "Tell me about yourself!" "Do you want some ice cream?" "How about some cracker pudding! I have cracker pudding!" "What can I send with you?" Being one of three little girls with the very same, very long, name: "Kim… no, Katie… no, Lori." Making applesauce, and making birds-nests with bran cereal, chocolate, and jelly beans. After grandkid talent shows, us prodding Grandma to take a turn at the piano, and she would invariably play "Star of the Sea." Doing beans on the back porch and waiting for the window well cats to show up. The stromboli incident story: when she and Grandpa had a coupon, and, having no idea what they were, they got 2. "…and here came Earl out to the car with these two huge things, and we just laughed because there was no way we could eat all that!" How she worried about me living in New York City, asking what floor I lived on (higher was safer), if the air was okay, if I got enough to eat. How she used to tell us about going up to Landis Homes to read to the "old people" … and she was well into her seventies by this time. Then, when she moved to Landis Homes herself, she would complain about there being "too many OLD people" there… when she was 90. Our parting words were almost always "Now you stay out of trouble, Grandma," and she would say "I’ll try." More recently, I would ask her how she was doing, and she would say, "Oh, I’m getting old." It was then when I began to understand how SHE defined "old" … you’re only old when you’re ready to be. That is why I will enjoy at any age - at 30 as much as I did at 3 - the way she always said "Oh, my Katie" when we hugged, and the warm memory of falling asleep in her lap, a lullaby fading into sweet dreams. Katie Shenk Hadjolian |