Gramma, Cont.

[Des has been waiting her turn to post about Gramma, but I think we can skip some of the younger kids and get this moving again]

On the evening of Gramma’s wake, once we were back at the hotel, I told Abe I had a story about Gramma that I wanted to share.  However, as we had come straight from the airport a bit late, and were not there when the wake began, I wasn’t sure what the parameters of the event were (i.e., only immediate family was asked to speak; it was meant to end at a certain time and that time was up; etc.) and so I decided against it. 

On the hotel bed, I told Abe my story of the one Thanksgiving Rika, Rileigh, and I spent in Gramma’s kitchen preparing labor intensive (it took us all day) appetizers for the party.  They were bacon wrapped dates stuffed with goat cheese and homemade herbed macaroni and cheese in crispy oven-baked parmesan cups.  When we arrived at the Thanksgiving dinner in the cafeteria of Mary’s school, there were a number of us in the kitchen plating and otherwise preparing our food.  Gramma was standing near me at the time.  (All day she had been in and out of the kitchen, and had asked at one point what we were making, but didn’t react much, if at all, when I tried to explain.  She just nodded and said “oh?” and kept walking.)  I asked her then, in the kitchen, if she wanted to try one of the bacon wrapped dates.  She didn’t seem to really, but she said OK.  She took a tiny bite and put it down.  When she had swallowed, I asked her what she thought.  She said, in that cute shaky voice of hers, “honey, it wasn’t worth the effort.”

 At Gramma’s funeral, when the cousins, led by Matt, all gathered around to tell a few stories and have a drink in Gramma’s honor (one of my most treasured moments of the weekend, and with the Moore family ever), Abe chimed in with a story.  Incidentally, it was MY story.  I was . . . surprised . . . to say the least . . . !  As Abe delivered the punch-line and we all laughed (I laughed at my own story!), I pictured telling Gramma this very thing.  “Gramma! Abe stole my story!  The one about you eating the bacon wrapped date at Thanksgiving and how you told me it wasn’t worth the effort.”  And I pictured Gramma putting her little arm around my neck (I know for most of you it was waist, but I’m short enough that she would put her arm around my neck instead) and I could hear her voice perfectly clear and rolling, or sing song-y, as it was: “well, honey . . . what. are. you. going. to. do. about. that.?”  “Hmm . . . just laugh, I guess, Gramma?  It was really funny.”

 On a more serious note, I am grateful to have known someone who was so capable of loving, so capable of making everyone feel so special, as has been said again and again here on the blog.  Gramma wasn’t lucky to have a funeral so well attended and so deeply full of love - it seems she fostered it over her 92 years, genuinely, thoughtfully, and purely.  It’s a remarkable thing, really.  I wish I could channel that somehow, and love that way.  In the meantime, I’ll just ask Gramma when I’m not sure how.  It’s easy enough to call up that voice.    

Desiree