The only grandmother I ever knew was my paternal grandmother. A woman who raised 7 boys (oddly enough) and no girls. Having always wanted a girl, you’d think that with her first granddaughter (me) she would have been the sweetest gran you ever knew. Not so. Any man in the world could tell her that the sky was green and she would bow down to this proclamation with humility. A woman could tell her that her hair looked lovely and you’d think she just told her she stinks! I never understood this about her until I asked her about her childhood. Ah yes, her childhood. She had the sweetest and gentlest father any girl could ever want: an Englishman who played piano, attended ballet, and kissed hurts. And she had a mother who would drag her daughter to the kitchen sink and splash her face with water anytime she cried (this produced a lifelong phobia of water for my grandmother). She had a husband (God bless him, I love my grandpa) who never failed to tell company that the only reason my grandmother taught elementary school was that that was her intellectual level.

And so I began to understand and have compassion for my dear gran. I would visit and swallow every word, ignore every snidely comment, sideways glance, and the like. Because she deserved to be treated with kindness from a woman. After all, that is what I would want someone to do for me if I too lived the pain she had.

I dearly miss the two of them.

=)

The other thing I’ve been told about her is that she kind of bucked 1940′s and 50′s housekeeping conventions by staying up late at night to clean and putter around, then arising early, getting her family ready for the day, and going back to bed. Maybe that’s where my night-owl tendencies come from?

I always struggled to understand my other grandma, even though she was the one that I knew. She died while I was on my mission. She was very proper and always wore elbow-length gloves when she went out. She wore a wiglet on top of her head, which, in her later years, didn’t quite match her real hair underneath. She washed her clothes in a wringer washing machine until she was in her 80′s, despite the family’s repeated attempts to buy her a modern washer. In fact, when we would visit, my mom would have to sneak our laundry out to my other grandparents to wash it because grandma would get very offended that Mom didn’t want to do laundry her way.

She spent years of her life living on a remote farm, which she hated, but she rarely complained. I can’t even imagine that amount of work she had to do. She had to cook on a wood stove, even though people in town had modern ones. My grandfather was excommunited and rebaptized early in their marriage. She never ever spoke of it. She was widowed in her fifties and remained alone for more than 30 years.

Grandma held grudges and she worried incessently. She had anxiety to the point where my parents never did tell her that my dad had had open heart surgery. I think how hard it must of been for my mother to not be able to rely on the support of her own mother at that difficult time, and to have to keep such a huge trial a secret. Grandma thought various family members didn’t like her and wanted to one-up her, which was not true. She held grudges against several of my aunts for wrongdoings which never even happened.

As a teenager, I played the piano. Every time I went to my grandma’s, she wanted me to play for her. She wanted me to sit and spend an hour at a time making tapes of my playing for her to listen to. I hated that.

As a college student, I visited her out of obligation. She was hard-of-hearing and difficult to have conversations with.

Now she’s been dead for 15 years, and even though I think I would still struggle with her if she were alive, I also know that in a way we are kindred spirits. I inherited her anxiety, though seeing what it did to her has made me determined for that not to happen to me. There have been times in my life, going through difficult things, where I’ve had the distinct impression that she was nearby and that she, of all the people in my family, is the most like me and the one who has really understood some of what I’ve felt inside.

I am lucky to have both my grandmothers still with me. My Dad’s mother, Dorothy (where I get my middle name), is a mannerly writer, artist and musician with a quick wit and optimistic spin on life. She was raised Mormon in Idaho, but spent a wild college summer in San Fransisco where she met and married a moody non-member. She quietly lived outside of the church so as not to “make waves” in their marriage.

She now has the beginnings of Alzheimers and doesn’t remember drinking glasses of wine or living without the church. She tends to ask the same question three or four times (though she can still tell you about all the different kinds of shoes her third grade teacher, Miss Dempsey, wore.). I have to admit to using her as a sounding board for my problems, because she gives spectacular advice and later forgets our conversations.

My maternal, Bulgarian Grandmother, Nevenka, lived with my husband and I for our first year of marriage. I was told not to sit on sidewalks (“You’ll freeze your ovaries!”), not to do laundry for 2 weeks before and after Easter out of respect (though we didn’t SMELL respectful), and to comb my hair and wash my face so that I didn’t look like a gypsy. It was common for her and my husband to argue about using the sorrel, grape leaves or linden tree blossoms that she had casually gathered on her walks in the river bottoms to prepare and feed to me–his pregnant wife. It was also not unusual for us to find moldy scones we had stuffed in drawers or behind plants, because she insisted on stuffing us with food until we burst.

I see both of my grandmothers in myself when I cook with philough dough, sing traditional Bulgarian songs, write, or try not to “make waves”. I feel lucky, blessed and a bit magical to resemble them in any way.