Good bye Gramma -an ode to Alice Ruth

My first real memory of you is at your house, in your kitchen. I was 4 or 5 and I would give you a big hug and you’d pat my bum. You’d call it a spank and said “good kids get a spank on the bum” I laughed and thought you were funny. I loved your voice, and your smile and your laugh. You knew you were being silly and I was at the perfect age for it. You always smelled like Oscar de la Renta and your house was quiet and made funny creak sounds. Your clock that had to be wound and would jingle every 15 minutes and bong every hour, our old toys that were kept in your basement, and you always had homemade chocolate ice cream in your freezer… always.

You were a gramma, and you had a gramma house. But, I know you were not always a gramma. You were once Alice Ruth Plummer, a young girl with a Dad who traveled and a mom who loved to treat your sweet tooth. At  least, that’s what I’ve been told by my mom. You never shared much about your childhood or your own life. I don’t know if it was because I never asked or because you were just private or you could never see me as more than that good little girl. But if I can imagine what your life was like I feel sad for you.

You grew up sort of in the south. Kentucky, or Tennesse I think. I could never remember. I know your dad did travel a lot and you eventually moved to Illinois.

Not having a dad around much must have been hard, although I don’t know what Grandpa Plummer was like. Maybe it was good he wasn’t around, you never talked about him and I never asked.

You were a smart cookie. You went to university, which, in the 30’s was a big deal. You wanted to be a librarian. You had your life and career planned. Then Grampa happened. You met him and that was it. He didn’t want you working, which, is not a big deal in the 30’s. You turned in your plans for someone else’s and you made new plans.

I imagine you didn’t realize you were marrying a drunk….

I imagine you didn’t know he was boorish…

I imagine you didn’t know he would go on a bender for a night… or two…

I imagine when you had your first child, a girl, and then your second child, my mom – less than a year later, that you didn’t know you would out live 2 of your four children...

I imagine you hated grampa sometimes….

I imagine you wished you had said no to him instead of yes…

I imagine that living with a drunk was hard…

I imagine burying your first born when she was in her thirties but never matured past 15 was harder…

I imagine watching your son succumb to the same disease that tortured your husband was infuriating and made you feel helpless…

I imagine knowing your youngest was suffering the same rare genetic disorder that your daughter suffered and that you would be burying him in his thirties was rage inducing…

“no parent should outlive their child” you said   

I imagine the day grampa collapsed at the kitchen table you finally had peace…

I imagine watching your healthy daughter have surgeries for benign tumours was defeating….

I imagine watching your son’s divorce was heartbreaking….

I imagine you had enough in one life Alice Ruth…

But all I saw was you living nothing more than passivity…

Maybe because some of this stuff happened before I was born, maybe because some of this stuff happened when I was a kid, maybe because you are just from that time, or your mother taught you to keep it inside. But here I come to the end of your life, the end of your 97 years and I realize I know so little about you. What made you tick? How do I mourn someone I feel like I didn’t really know? Our relationship never really broke the gramma-child barrier. Even as a 20 year old, I felt like you still saw me as that 5 year old.

You would stay with us at Christmas and we would bake together and laugh at silly things but none of it had meat… you and mom would sit and talk and do crossword puzzle books. You had a history and you understood each other, I watched and didn’t get it.

I think I get it now though. I have had my hurts, my plans have been changed, I have out lived a child, I have felt helpless, I have had my rage. But I won’t keep it to myself. When it is my time I won’t just be a gramma to the littles…"spanking" their bums for being good. I will be a gramma to the big kids too, telling them my life, my experience, my stories of defeat, and God’s grace, my plans, my loves, my hurts.

Your river ran deep gramma, but you kept it cordoned off.. on a small level I can understand why, but you and I… we missed out on so much. But missing out has taught me too, so, thank you gramma for keeping it to yourself and teaching me that relationships are about pursuing. You didn’t pursue me and I didn’t pursue you and we were the poorer for it.

So I will pursue my grandchildren, if I am so blessed to have, and I pray that they will pursue me and I will tell them so because of Alice Ruth….