Lately, I've been having more trouble than usual sleeping and that's saying something. I've never been a good sleeper and, before you start posting sleep remedies, I've tried them. All of them. What's worked best for me has been Ambien, though lately that hasn't worked, so I dutifully went to the doctor and we decided to try Ambien CR. The only catch was that it turned out my insurance wouldn't cover it until I'd used up the rest of the last prescription. It didn't matter that the current medicine wasn't working and my doctor wanted me on another. My first reaction to this was an expletive. My second was to remind myself how lucky I am to have insurance at all.
That reaction is what I call the "Grandma Buhler" effect. My mom's mom was incredibly optimistic and grateful for everything she had. Give her a bad situation and she'd find a blessing in it...or two or three. A number of life experiences shaped this. One was when, as a child, she sat too close to a woodstove and caught on fire. At first, she was not expected to live, and then she spent months in a pre-WWII pediatric burn unit, enduring skin grafts and other medical tortures. I figure when you've been in a pre-WWII pediatric burn unit, most things in life seem pretty damn minor. In fact, one of my mantras for when everything seems awful is "at least it's not a pre-WWII pediatric burn unit."
This does not mean she was a Pollyanna. You know, Hayley Mills' character who asks for a doll and gets crutches and gets over her disappointment by being glad she doesn't need them. In that situation, Grandma would have been disappointed, eventually glad she didn't need them, (but still disappointed,) but she also would have realized that somebody didn't get the crutches they needed (which never seemed to occur to Pollyanna) and that would have really bugged her. She probably would have tried to track down the child who had needed the crutches. And she would have lost sleep over it.
My Grandma Roberts, my great-grandmother on the other side of the family, would have reacted differently. She would have been furious about not getting the doll, but she also would have kept the crutches, knowing with the instincts of a great--uh, packrat--that you can never have too many pairs of crutches stashed away. She also might have wanted to make sure that no one on the block had better crutches.
I remember being a small girl and finding a cane in a closet at Grandma Roberts' house. I believe it belonged to Aunt Pearl. What I can't tell you is how Aunt Pearl fit into the family or if she was even anyone's aunt. That family is kind of loose about things like that. People called "aunt" or "uncle" might really be cousins and people called "cousins" might really be nephews. Uh, yeah.
At the time, I thought it was sweet that Grandma Roberts couldn't bear to part with the cane and proof of how much she loved Aunt Pearl. Now I realize it was only part sentimental. Mostly it was the "They don't make good canes like they used to and you never know when you need one so it would be a sin to throw one out" mentality. It was like walking past a penny and not picking it up. Grandma Roberts used to tell my dad that "If you don't see the pennies, you'll never see the dollars."
Then there was my great-aunt Chick. Once, when Mom and I were living in Arizona, someone called and asked for her. I told them she wasn't there and offered to take a message. She said, "Tell her her Aunt Charlette called." (I hope I'm spelling that right...I know it was an unusual spelling. Someone remind me if I have it wrong.) I took the message and when my mom came home, said "Since when do you have an aunt Charlette?" She said, "Oh, that's Chick. Chick hates being called Chick." I said, "Does the family know that?" and she said, "Yes, but everyone still calls her Chick anyway."
Anyway, it turns out that my great-aunt Chick (Charlette) had decided to write a book about her battle of weight loss, so called her niece the author for pointers. While I don't still have the manuscript and wish I did, it contained several hysterical stories, including one which my mom swore was "All you need to know about Aunt Chick...I mean, Charlette."
It seems one summer she and a friend decided this was it, they were losing the weight. They joined an aerobics class and twice a week they'd drop all their kids off at a babysitters, go to class, pick up the kids and then, "as a reward" go to Snelgrove's (famous Utah ice cream shop) for root beer floats. Chick (Charlette) said to my mom, in all seriousness, "Linda, I didn't miss a class that summer, and I didn't lose a pound, either." Next time I insist chocolate is a health food, remember this story. It's genetic.
Why I remember all these family stories and quirks is beyond me. Maybe part of it is because I come from two families of storytellers who also remembered them and found value in retelling them. Maybe the part of my brain that keeps track of family stories is dominant while the part that regulates sleep clearly isn't.
I can tell you that Ambien or no, I wouldn't have gotten to sleep Christmas night until all my thank you notes were done. In fact, as I crawled into bed that night, I thought, "Susan, I hope you noticed I did all my thank you notes. Ok, some were emails, but I did them all." My aunt Susan had many fine qualities, but absolutely no tolerance for late thank you notes, and she wouldn't mind waking me to get them done.
Of course, first I'd have to go to sleep....
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