Gramma

Almost a year ago my grandma moved from Florida to Indiana because, as she put it, "I'm gonna be buried there, I may as well die there." Soon after she relocated, we found out she had a lung mass, and even though she couldn't remember why she was at her doctor's appointments, she always knew she didn't want to get treatment. She was ready to wrap it up, to "head upstairs," and while her attitude was a gift that made letting her go easier, losing her hurts to the bone.

In her 89 years, Gram raised six kids and buried three of them. She married two men and buried both of them. She made countless friends, explored the country, and most loved the view out her kitchen window when the deer came into the field in the evenings.

For me, she was that grandparent. The one who was your favorite, who loved you as sweetly as a grandparent should, who let you be who you are, and who felt like home to you. My favorite memories of life have her in the background, as her farm was the backdrop for the purest childhood joy I ever felt. I remember playing in a giant tire sandbox under pine trees there, riding big wheels down a drainage ditch, wading the creek and catching crawdads and building up the dam, finally getting brave enough to jump off the bank and into the swimming hole, swinging on an old tire swing that probably every butt in the Scott family swang on at some point, learning how to live off blackberries picked off the vine and the most efficient way to fetch firewood. 

The place we called "back at the crick" initially had nothing but a clear patch in the middle of some woods, but that place of nothing was everything to me. It was so full of good times and wild abandon, and when I got too tired or dirty from being an animal, I'd retreat back up to the house, get hosed off outside by Gram, and then get to come inside (leaving my shoes at the door) and play in the cool, musty, delicious smelling air in the basement. She'd make me fried chicken and mashed potatoes, which I'd eat in my special yellow booster stool. She let me sleep in a baby crib in her closet until I was 7 years old. She gave me her old nightgowns to use as a silky blanket. She'd take me on adventures to "town," for which she got ready by putting lipstick on her cheeks and rubbing it in, and let me pick out which cold cuts to buy and and a sack full of penny candy. She didn't judge me for choosing olive loaf or ham and cheese loaf. In fact, she made me feel special for making those choices.

Gram was fat before fat was an epidemic. Her lumpy grandma body was the most comfortable place I've ever been, and she rocked me in a recliner even after I was way too big for it. She'd sit in her chair mending clothes while I'd play with her spools of thread like they were characters in a soap opera, soap operas I knew all too well as a five-year-old because of her addiction to her "stories." As we were sorting through her recipes after we lost her, I found recipes for a diet cabbage soup, and it was only then that I realized she considered her body a struggle. I loved that body. It was the perfect body for a grandma to have, and even when it yelled at me or disciplined me, it was a safe haven that made it all better. 

As I got older and had issues with my dad, Gram became my retreat. I stayed with her whenever I visited during high school and college. After I got my first job after college, I took her out to dinner for pork chops at a steakhouse called Amber's and learned about her life as a child and during her first marriage. She had it rough, a mom with tuberculosis who left the family to go to a sanitarium, a dad who was an angry alcoholic. She found her spine in those struggles, and when I asked her about the death of her first husband from a drunk driving accident, she said, "If he hadn't died, I would've divorced him." She told me about how she met my handsome grandpa. As she told it, he had dated some of her friends at work and did them pretty dirty, so she decided to get him on a date to return the favor. She ended up falling for him, driving across the country to California, and, after he bought her a bedroom suit, she married him. By the time I came around, they'd been married 26 years, and by the time I became able to remember things, it was closer to 30. I remember lots of yelling at each other, Grampa getting fed up and shouting "Goddammit Phyllis!" and them sleeping in opposite ends of the house. 

When I visited Gram with Mack last year, she told me a story of a time she was shouting at Grampa so relentlessly all he could do was grab her by the shoulders, look her in the eye, and say, "You are the mother of my children," probably more to remind himself why he couldn't kill her than to get her off the ledge, but that comment took the wind out of her sails. She was a pistol, and she was a fighter, but as her granddaughter, I didn't get her wrath at its most fierce. I knew it was there, but I was spared. Except that one time I sassed her with, "You're not my mom," and she growled at me, "I am your GRAND mother, and that makes me bigger than your mom."

In preparation for her funeral, we were supposed to come up with one word to describe Gram. When I think of her, it's her bossiness that sticks out most in my mind. But not in the overbearing bossy naggy way. Instead it's an unapologetic demand for respect, for acknowledgement, for the right to assert oneself whenever it feels necessary. She was 4'10" but she was a giant among a bunch of men who became Marines. She showed me how a woman stands up for herself and that it is okay to make demands, to raise your voice to be heard if that's what it takes. I'm not nearly as good at it as she was, but hopefully if I make it to 89 I'll find that incredible balance of moxie and softness that I so admired in her. I am so grateful to have felt her love, to have seen her strength, and to have enjoyed such a perfect grandma.