Emails from an Asshole

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Special thanks to Mr. Royle for directing me to this incredible site – it really brightens my day

 

In Memoriam

I’ve been wanting to write about my grandmother since the day I heard about her passing over 4th of July weekend.  I held off mostly because I wanted to be able to think about her clearly – recall all the memories from when I was younger and be able to think and write about them without breaking down.  Today I’m writing this 3 days removed from her funeral service, after spending a lot of time revisiting not only my own memories, but those of my entire family as well.

I remember when I was young my grandma used to babysit me after school until my parents came home.  I don’t remember exactly what age I was, just that I was young.  It was back when mom worked full time and dad was still making either meatloaf or pork chops every single Monday for dinner.  I’m hard-pressed to remember many individual happenings, but I remember many recurring events.  Things like building forts out of the couch cushions, watching Dynasty, singing along with Jerry, the Big Giraffe, and of course, David the Gnome on Nickelodeon:

The one thing I remember in particular for some reason was the time my grandma made tomato soup and for some reason put peanut butter inside.  For some reason she thought it wise to advise a little kid ahead of time that she had done something out of the ordinary with lunch, so naturally I protested that it was weird and sounded gross.  I remember it specifically because she didn’t give the standard sort of, “you’ll eat this and like it!” or “it’s this or nothing!” responses you usually hear as a kid when you complain about your food.  She looked at me and she just said, “try it.  If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it.”

She talked to me like I wasn’t a little kid, and that was the first memory I had where somebody didn’t treat me like a kid, though I still very much was.  I tried a few spoonfulls, decided I didn’t like it, and that was it.  I didn’t get in trouble, I didn’t go hungry – I just got spaghetti and we moved on.

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Friday afternoon I stood with my family outside the funeral home, preparing to enter and see our grandmother, mother, and wife on display to pay our final respect.  We stood in a circle and held hands and prayed.  As we all stood there together, we were reminded that not a single person in the circle would have been on the planet if it weren’t for her.  It was something we obviously all knew, but something I had never personally really thought about.  It was this huge realization to me at the time – what a huge impact this person had on the world to ultimately be responsible for so many lives.

It brought me comfort to think that, on such a sad day when we mourned her loss, ultimately her memory would be carried on by the ways in which she touched everyone in that circle.  Each one of us full of memories like mine, certainly even more of them, that will always keep her alive in some small way.   Ultimately that’s why I was unable to approach the casket up close.  I had already found the way in which I wanted to remember my grandma – the supportive and loving woman who always wanted me to know how proud she was of me, and who didn’t treat me like a little kid when I didn’t like peanut butter in my soup.

Rest in peace, NMW  @-;—–