Due to how fragmented my family is, I was actually closest to my grandmother. She was the most open to teaching of any of my family, unfortunately we did not see much of each other due to my grandfather relocating state to state for work.
But I was raised in a mobile home on the farm owned and operated by my parents and my father's parents. The yard is at least 3 acres square and there was a garden inbetween the Farm house and trailer that my mother and grandmother worked together during the summer. It may not have been perfect, but we didn't go hungry then. One of the most memorable features of the front yard was the foot path beat into the grass from generations of kids running back and forth between the house that was on the other side of us, and the barn and farm house. It took 4 or 5 years for the foot path to truly begin to fade after my grandparents and the neighbors on the otherside of us moved.
The earliest memory I have of my grandmother was her cooking. It has been a standard of quality that resturants and bakeries have yet to match. She was not exactly a cheery grandmother, but she was a loving. The meals she prepared even if it was just lunch were done with the precision of a professional Chef. She didn't do it for the approval she did it because she always wanted to improve and learn. She was not highly educated nor did she seek out information in books or people (the area is pretty ignorant even today). But every time I visited (almost every day), there were fresh loavs of bread cooling on the hutch. The wood stove even in the summer sometimes would have something cooking on it. Beyond the electric range and oven that was constantly going. The sink usually had some vegetable being cleaned or prepped.
But the earliest memory I have of her that was specific rather then just a sense or impression (I was 3 or 4 when they moved), I still remember this giant cinnamon roll she made me as a early birthday cake before her and my grandfather moved for the sake of work. They were less then 24 hours from moving, she took the time to dig the ingredients, and mixing dishes etc. out of the boxes and made me a cinimon roll from scratch. Invited me over in this little ad hoc birthday party the night before the move, and put a candle in it.
They moved the next day and I didn't see her again in person until I was about 9 years old. When we did a road trip to visit family up and down the east coast (all of whom I have seen only once since at a funeral) we were there only a few days, and they always were certain to give gifts that were specific, high quality, and things I found interesting. We shopped together for the gift when we were there. It was a rubberband driven model plane that took an hour to assemble (and about 15 minutes to destroy) but that thing could really fly. I havn't seen them being sold anywhere since but I have always wanted to find another one.
The next time we visited was 3 years later and they took us to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum (and a couple other places but I don't remember much of them). At the time the Voyager plane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutan_Voyager was recently put on display and I got to touch the wing when my father lifted me up to touch it (I also think he threw his back out doing that). The museum currators wern't too happy with us... :D
Thats one thing I have always hated about museums, you can't actually touch the creations on display.... let alone get into one of them. The machines were created to move, to me its a crime to keep them out of reach. In "star trek - first contact" the comment "touching it makes it more real" isn't quite accurate.. and shows the writers were never actually inspired by any of the creations on display. For me its that if you are inspired by the works done by others, to hold what ever that is in your hands imparts the ability to sense the impression the artist or designer had intended. Texture, weight, color, balance of it depending on the object, what ever it may be. Holding it connects you to the original urge that drove its creator to make it manifest.
It gave me a sense of wonder, not aimless wonder, but wonder about specifics, what is it made of, how was the wing created, how was it assembled, how were things chosen, what was it like to fly in, and how did they figure out how to pay for it?
For me that craft was more inspiring then any of the moon landers since NASA had been slacking off since before I was born, and was still set on 30 years of flying the same prototypes into space (and killing people due to budget cuts and keeping up appearances to keep their jobs). Far as I am concerned Regan and Bush Clinton and Bush should have been impeached for the loss of life due to "budget cuts". For that reason I would rather join the military since I know by even being on the ground in a combat situation I would be able to actually prevent someone from dieing.
The last couple of memories that stand out in my mind of my grandmother though, were when her and my grandfather moved back north and built a home where the previous house had burnt down, at this time we had been in the old farm house about 8 years, the mobile home was being rented out. By this time my grandmother was getting weaker... years of second handsmoke had taken its toll. And she spent much of her time resting or trying to stay busy. She never lost the urge to improve, she wore a rubberband on her wrist as a way to help her correct her negative thinking and habits.
One thing that I never learned how to do was work with other people or family members, one thing I did shortly after she moved back was to call her to learn how to play solitaire. She was a 2 minute walk. WTF. At that time, going and visiting someone would always end up with me being hollared at for not being available for chores or some other BS reason to cut me off from others. So visiting in person in spite of the abuse was always a challenge.
The first project (only actually) I worked on with her, that we were able to enjoy each other's company was to create a puppet/marionete (I loved the muppets when I was a little kid so this wasn't too much of a stretch for me). The project was inspired by something I saw at a craftfair a year or two before, it was this little two legged creature that had a saucer shapped body and head as well as feet and looked like a furry raptor with no tail or mouth. She was sewing something as a gift that day, and asked her if I could work on that... and she said sure, gave me the material and I worked on it steadily until I had a walking puppet with a bobbing head. (I have the picture in a pile next to me right now).
The last memory that I have that was of just her and I was bitter sweet. It was the summer before she finally left us. I got to talking about the Phantom of the Opera (for some reason my parents took my sister and I to a performance in Montreal several years prior) and since she always encouraged me to play the piano and that my uncle was highly musical I figured she had been to a musical or concert at some point when in Washington DC. She never had. I was amazed at this... at this point I think the show had finished playing anywhere within 6 hours of us and there was no way for me to help her go see it that I knew of (something that would not be a problem now if I had only known then what I know now). But what I did have was two audio tapes of the performance, I immediately got up went back to the house and grabbed my stereo (it had better speakers then theirs) and the tapes. And we sat and listened to the program together, something I never would have been interested in enough to want to attend had it not been for her encouragement.
Its been almost 10 years since she left. It was hardest the first few years, letting go of the anger and bitterness of how poorly she was cared for by the medical community, family and how alone she was in the end. I did my best to share with her who I had become thanks to her influence. She wanted better, but did not know how to bring it about. I wanted better, but I also did not know how to bring that about. With my sister and I she made her best effort, but due to my mother's constant manipulation, and my grandfather's anger. My aunts and uncles on both sides of the family only share anger and resentments of each other as a family bond.
It has infected this generation as well. My cousin is doing her best to cast it off, and seek out the truth. But its not possible for me to be an example to her, since she has so many other influences and given where I am at in my life I am not eaxtly a shining example of the benefits of honesty and pursuit of knowlege. But she seeks me out from time to time, hooks me up with a pizza roll (she knows I love um), I share my wisdom gleaned from pain. And continue the work my grandmother started. To heal the past, forgive the stupidity, allow the mistakes to not be repeated, and grow through each visit. Even when her and I are the only example of it in our lives now.
Grandma, the work you did and who you chose to be, you have shaped who I have become. And I will continue to do for others as you have done for me. Thank you.
