Tag Archives: grandma

Obituary

ache, home, life on the foreign field, Poetry, , , , ,

How do you pen the life of a 100 years on a paper in black and white?

In the newspaper it goes like this:

“Was born, was baptized, was married to, and died.

Preceded in death, and survivors include….”

As if life could be fitted into a fill-in-the-blank formula.

There was so much more to her.

How do you include the way her wrinkly voice (yes, her voice was wrinkly too) would say, “Much obliged!” and how she would wave from the window as we left?

What about the way she loved her flowers and got up early to pick strawberries on dewy May mornings?

How do you tell how she would stay up late at night reading like a night owl?

How do you write about the years of farming, of eking out a living on a prairie riddled with drought?

Or the pink and cream mommi crackers she would always give us when we visited?

How do you write about her love for the birds and how she fed them faithfully and knew the names of each kind?

Did you write of the hours that she prayed for us, sitting in her chair on her orange and brown afghan?

Or about the time she chased the squirrel down from the birdfeeder with her rolled-up newspaper?

What about the years of the Dust bowl, how the storms loomed up over the prairie, and how the dust gritted in her mouth so thick she could scarcely breathe?

How do you include all she saw, from the Roaring 20’s to the Dust Bowl to World War 2 to the Vietnam War, to the age of technology and Covid19?

How do you pen a 100 years in black and white?

Born on the rugged prairies, a tiny Kansas sunflower.

A woman of prayer.

The essence of kindness, faithfulness, and generosity.

She lived. She died.

And she loved.

Mommi

ache, home, life on the foreign field, love, , , , ,

My grandma is old.

She has always been old, to me.

I remember going to her house one day when I was 4. My mom was going to Hutch. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to go to my grandma’s house, or Mommi’s house, and play with the Berenstein bears in the log cabin that Doddi built.

She was old already, back then.

She was already old when Doddi died from complications from open heart surgery when I was 9.

She was old when I went to Thailand the first time over 8 years ago. And she has been getting older every time I come home again.

And each time I leave, I say goodbye for the last time.

Every time I see her, she is a little bit smaller, a little bit whiter, and a little bit thinner. But she is always, always as sweet and kind as ever. This last time is like that, when I go home for my visit.

My grandma is old. She has always been old, but now she is older than ever. She is 100 years old. She sleeps on a hospital bed and eats her meals from her chair. My mom and my aunts take turns staying with her every night and day.

One time I stay with her so that Mom can go to her cousin’s garage sale. I read from the Budget at the top of my lungs until Mommi has pity on me and tells me I can stop. Then I read through some of the 200 cards she received on her 100th birthday until Mom comes back to stay with her for the night.

She is starting to forget things, which is painful to watch, not so much because she is becoming forgetful, as would be expected for a woman of 100, but because she realizes that her sharp mind is not quite as sharp anymore and it bothers her. So, I try not to ask her too many questions about something that she might not remember well.

I give her a small handbag made by a team of ladies in Thailand. She is delighted with it, and keeps on commenting about it and saying thank you. “It’s so pretty that I won’t want to take it anywhere for fear something will happen to it,” she says. A minute later, she remembers and says almost apologetically, “Well, I don’t go anywhere anyway anymore.”

On my last day at home, I go over in the rainy evening to say goodbye. She is sitting on her brown chair with the colorful orange and brown afghan, eating her supper. Dorothy is there with her for the night. I sit down and we chat for a while before I say goodbye.

She is smaller than ever. I give her a hug and hold her hand for a bit, and then leave before the tears can burst from the floodgates.

The last I see her is as I drive past. Dorothy is waving, and so is Mommi, a thin white hand from the window.

I am glad for the rain streaming down the windshield.