Betty Jane

I lost my grandma today. She’s been sick for a long time, but when a life ends, it’s still shocking, whether you knew it was coming or not. I’m not qualified to write elegantly about death and heaven and the passing of generations…and so many people have done it so much better than I ever could. But I want to write about my grandma.
We never lived in the same town. My dad was The One That Left, and I think that for a long time, my mom was The One That Took Bill Away. But we visited often – especially in the summer. My family moved around a lot, but my grandparents’ house was always the same. In some ways, their home was my stability as a child. The attic had been finished and converted into a sleeping area with beds near all the windows. There was a secret cubby up there where Gram kept the toys. That raggedy Mrs. Beasley doll was always waiting for me in the cubby. When we would go to sleep up in the attic, we could hear the ticks and chimes of the clock that was just down the stairs in the living room. I made my husband buy a real, wind-up clock to keep by my bed last year because that ticking sound will always be soothing to me. When we woke up on Saturdays at her house, the heavenly smell of white-bread toast, bacon and coffee was calling us down to the table. I have that toaster now – it sits on my kitchen counter. We never got white bread OR bacon at our house! Or Twinkies. Grandma always had a box of Twinkies to share with us.
The basement at her house was also a place of wonders. There was an entire wall of shelves filled with back issues of National Geographic. In that corner, between the shelves and the bed (I think there was a bed…), I decided I would become an archaeologist. That didn’t work out, but I do still love old stuff. Grandma had a dresser drawer in the basement filled with girl stuff - little tiny Avon lipstick samples, and perfume-sample towelettes in foil packages, and beautiful rings that she never wore…at least, I thought they were beautiful.
Gram always had Juicy Fruit gum in her purse, too. Sugar gum was another no-no in our organic, whole-grain house. She would give us a piece if we were there for church. And after church, she would have a roast waiting in the crock pot.
Not that she was Suzie Homemaker. She was a working woman. She came from a coal mining family – the wrong side of the tracks, my dad says. She was spunky, full of life and fun, and covered with freckles. I loved the freckles on her arms. I have quite a few of them myself.
Aside from freckles, the most noticeable trait I inherited from her was a preternatural love of shoes. She told me once about a pair of red ones that she saw in a store window when she was small. She pointed them out to her aunt and wanted them so badly because she was sure they would make her run faster. Her aunt sent them for Christmas. I still believe that nothing bad can happen to you if you’re wearing red shoes!
She also had an acerbic wit. No one was safe from her not-so-gentle teasing. But that’s okay, because she could take it too. Usually.
She was the only one of my relatives that routinely shortened my name to “Chris.” That really got under my mom’s skin when I was little. Lots of the Bucklews call me “Chris” still, but it was Gram that started it.
Our family moved to the entirely opposite end of the country when I was ten. Grandma and Grandpa started to come for long visits then. They usually came around Christmas and stayed until it got too “sultry.” That’s what Grandma used to say when the Florida humidity started to kick back in sometime in March. By then, she was wearing her summer uniform of colorful, sleeveless, button-up shirts. But she and Grandpa were usually here for the strawberry season. We would go with them to this roadside-fruit-stand-turned-tourist-attraction for a gigantic strawberry shortcake before they would go back north. She loved the strawberry cookies that you could buy there. I think we sent her some last year.
She loved my husband when she met him – long before he was my husband. He was a Midwestern white-bread-and-Twinkies guy. In a small way, it was sort of like he was bringing me back home. She called him by his college nickname since then – even though we are far past college now.
My deepest connection with her didn’t come until later in my life, though. In my second pregnancy, we got the news that my husband and I had an rare blood/immune system issue. It works a lot like the Rh factor, which she dealt with in her own pregnancies and deliveries. She shared with me her own stories of loss and pain and her own near-death experience. She really understood that phase of my life like no one else could. From that point on, she had a special connection with my daughter, and even remembered Emma far longer than I expected her too as Alzheimer’s began to call her away.
It’s funny what little things the mind will call up in order to remind you of connection when you are separated by so much distance. This is really just a collection of small things. I have cousins that spent much more of their lives with her. But this is the part of her that is mine.
The wind chimes on my porch are singing softly in the breeze tonight. I chimed every one of them at the store to make sure I got the ones that sounded like Grandma’s. Hers used to hang in her back yard. I think that may be why I love my wind chimes so much. They have taken on a whole new meaning to me tonight.
Bye, Gram. I love you.

<3 Christy