Demystifying Grandma

Recently, someone remarked to me what a saint her father had become since his death. I told her that was nothing. My grandma started becoming a saint before she died. Not to everyone, but....there was definitely a myth started at some point and passed down through a few of us. For instance, I grew up believing that, at any sort of discord, my grandma would shatter into tiny pieces. Frequently, this was used to get a younger sibling (or niece) to take on someone else's chores. I also grew up believing she was perfect. Anyone doing anything less than perfect could be reprimanded by her example, though we could also count on never meeting her standard. When my mom realized I'd heard and believed all this, she swiftly debunked it.

"Grandma has many wonderful qualities," she would say, "but she is not perfect. She gets mad, she gets frustrated, she gets angry; she just doesn't do it out loud. And," my mom added, "Grandma isn't going to shatter if you don't dry the dishes right. Wait a minute, why are you drying dishes there? New rule: you only do chores that Grandma or Grandpa ask you to do. If it's one of my siblings, you tell them to do their own chores. And stop being so eager to please. Honestly!"

But I digress....

In later years, not only did I realize my mom was right (as she usually was), but I used to have a lot of fun teasing my grandma about her image in the family, which was a cross between Snow White and Joan of Arc.

One time, when she'd come to dinner with me and my mom, I really let her have it.

"Grandma," I said, "Do you know you've never once lost your temper?"

She rolled her eyes and replied, "I seem to remember a time or two."

"Grandma," I said, "do you know you've never once had an unkind thought about anyone?"

"Has your mom told you about how, once a couple of boys tossed her in a lake and she had to sit through the rest of the picnic in wet clothes, and then she got mono? I could have just shaken them."

At that point, my mom wondered aloud what had happened to those boys and my grandma started rattling off who they married, what careers they'd chosen, how many children they'd each had, and what those children were named. That was Grandma for you. If you met her once and mentioned you had to rush off to visit a relative in the hospital, three years later, when you met again, she would ask you how your relative was. She would remember their name, what they'd had, what hospital they'd been in, who their doctor was. All of it.

But anyway, back to the teasing:

"Grandma, do you know you never once wished you could sleep in rather than go to church?"

She considered this. "It wasn't so much that I wanted to sleep in, but I did wish it would start later in the day, especially when I had young children."

"Speaking of children, Grandma, did you know you had eight immaculate conceptions?"

She turned bright pink, but also laughed and then wiped her eyes. "What about the miscarriages?" she asked when she could speak again.

"Oh, those were lust," my mom said. "It's probably why you lost them, Mom."

"Well," I admitted, "I was told if you ever did participate in lustful acts, Grandpa probably persuaded you."

Turning even pinker, Grandma retorted, "I don't remember needing much persuasion."

At that point, while we were not literally rolling on the floor, laughing, we were all pretty close to it.

I once recounted this story to a relative. who asked, in a somewhat scandalized tone, "You talked to Grandma about sex?!" She then told me she only talked to Grandma about her children and her church job. I pointed out that since I had neither children nor a church job, Grandma and I needed another subject.

I love that I can still hear Grandma's laugh.