Memorial Day.
On this day, we salute and pay respect to those who protect and defend our country. Which I think is good and patriotic and certainly well deserved.
In my family we don't have any soldiers or veterans to honor yet it is a day of decorating graves-or it was when I was little. We would gather grandma's red peonies & purple Irises (only she called them Flags) from her little yard in Rosepark and drive up to the graveyard. How my grandma and mother could remember where my grandfather and great grandparents graves are is still a mystery to me. I remember my mom getting after me for stepping on the headstones but in my little Wendy head that was nicer than walking over their bodies buried beneath the ground. Maybe it was because I would try to jump from headstone to headstone that my mother got after me?
My great grandparents died when I was four. I remember my age vividly because I told my babysitter how sad I was and she said something to the effect, "You don't know anything about death, you are only four." But I did know, I knew that Grandma Pearl, the woman who babysat me sometimes while my mom was at work, who let me roll out my own little pie crust and had little pie pans just my size, and kept peppermint salt water taffy in little glass containers all over her house had died. No longer would I play at her house or lay in her lap and hear her tummy growl. I think about my great grandmother often when it's quiet and late at night. I now have a tummy that growls too and I wonder if this is a genetic trait from my great grandmother or just what happens to you when you get older?
I was blessed to experience few deaths in my growing up years. My mothers father died of cancer when she was fourteen and her mother, my precious Grandma Lee is still living.
When I was much older, pregnant with Rylee, my fathers mother, Grandma Johnson died. Grandma was a canner (which may not be a real word-she canned things) and taught me all about canning. Often times when I'm canning I think, "Dang, if I could just call grandma and ask her about.... " Rarely can I make it through canning season without a tear or two in honor of my little grandma-I was taller than her in sixth grade.
My grandfather passed a year later. Grandpa was a gardener. He grew it and she canned it. Somehow he brought to his little house on Boxelder street, wheelbarrows and wheelbarrows of "mountain dirt" to make his garden soil rich and fertile. On May 15th this year I told James, "We have to plant the tomatoes today! It's May 15th. Grandpa always said the tomatoes had to be in by the 15th." and we did without a day to spare!
My grandfather loved my grandmother. He loved to talk about their courtship. Grandma was 17 when she married Grandpa. It was during the Depression when they met and he was working on one of those government projects to get men working and had to walk miles just to visit & court her. He always told me what great "gams" she had and how they could "sure cut a rug."
Sometimes I drive by small houses in Murray and see the neon blue reflection of a TV and I have this overwhelming desire to have a Pepsi. That was grandpa's drink of choice and you learn early on when visiting to just say, "Yes, Grandpa. I'd love a Pepsi." as he's going to ask you every 20 minutes until you do.
I watched my grandparents grow old, deteriorate and becoming shells of their former self's. When they passed away it was not the sick and struggling old folks that I missed. It was the grandma of my childhood who teased me that she would "beat my britches down the street"- yet I knew she would never lay a hand on me. The grandma that let me wear her Aqua Net hairspray with glitter in it for no reason at all and call me Wendy Sue. (Even though my middle name is Lee.)
I missed the grandpa who would listen with rapt attention as I played for him-at his request-on the piano during family parties when no one else in the room was listening. He would clap like I had just played a fabulous concert. At my grandfather's viewing the room was so quiet. There was a piano and a hymn book. Please know I am not a great piano player, but in an attempt to fill the emptiness and I guess to play for my grandfather one last time, I sat at the piano and played. I always pick the hymns with the least amount of sharps or flats and I muddle through-often times just plunking out the melody with my top hand but that day, I would just flip to a page and play. Sharps and flats were no object, my top hand played with my bottom hand like never before. People would walk by and say "I didn't know you could play piano like this." Neither did I and I don't. I can't. And I never have again. I can't explain it, it just happened.
I can't remember the last time I went to decorate the graves with my Grandma and I don't think I've visited Grandma & Grandpa Johnson's graves since they were buried. It's not that I don't love them or remember them, I remember them each year during planting and canning season. They each have not a day but a season. I wonder if decorating graves is a thing of the past? I mean if I don't do it and teach my children to do it, then who will?
Probably no one and that's just as well in my book because all this death and remembrance stuff really bothers me. Not that Memorial Day bothers me, I'm all for this day honoring the men and women that defend our country. It's when it comes to our own loved ones that are not soldiers and veterans. I told James if I die before he does to bury my in a homemade pine box and forget all this craziness about satin lined coffins, mahogany finishes and all the other burial hoopla stuff that make funerals so expensive. If you visit my grave-don't bring me flowers-I won't be there and they'll just die. I'd rather you buy Chinese food and have a party or something. Doesn't that sound nicer? Or maybe rather than a certain "day" to remember and honor your loved one's you could remember them when you do something they love? Like in my case each time you attend a play or in my mom's case when you sew or my aunts when you quilt or like with my grandparents when I can or garden. Remembering and honoring shouldn't require flowers and guilt. Maybe it's as simple as writing a blog post about those you love that have gone on before you. Perhaps that is much more "memorable" and pleasant then hauling flowers, traipsing through a grave yard, and getting mad at your child for trying to leap from headstone to headstone?
On this day, we salute and pay respect to those who protect and defend our country. Which I think is good and patriotic and certainly well deserved.
In my family we don't have any soldiers or veterans to honor yet it is a day of decorating graves-or it was when I was little. We would gather grandma's red peonies & purple Irises (only she called them Flags) from her little yard in Rosepark and drive up to the graveyard. How my grandma and mother could remember where my grandfather and great grandparents graves are is still a mystery to me. I remember my mom getting after me for stepping on the headstones but in my little Wendy head that was nicer than walking over their bodies buried beneath the ground. Maybe it was because I would try to jump from headstone to headstone that my mother got after me?
My great grandparents died when I was four. I remember my age vividly because I told my babysitter how sad I was and she said something to the effect, "You don't know anything about death, you are only four." But I did know, I knew that Grandma Pearl, the woman who babysat me sometimes while my mom was at work, who let me roll out my own little pie crust and had little pie pans just my size, and kept peppermint salt water taffy in little glass containers all over her house had died. No longer would I play at her house or lay in her lap and hear her tummy growl. I think about my great grandmother often when it's quiet and late at night. I now have a tummy that growls too and I wonder if this is a genetic trait from my great grandmother or just what happens to you when you get older?
I was blessed to experience few deaths in my growing up years. My mothers father died of cancer when she was fourteen and her mother, my precious Grandma Lee is still living.
When I was much older, pregnant with Rylee, my fathers mother, Grandma Johnson died. Grandma was a canner (which may not be a real word-she canned things) and taught me all about canning. Often times when I'm canning I think, "Dang, if I could just call grandma and ask her about.... " Rarely can I make it through canning season without a tear or two in honor of my little grandma-I was taller than her in sixth grade.
My grandfather passed a year later. Grandpa was a gardener. He grew it and she canned it. Somehow he brought to his little house on Boxelder street, wheelbarrows and wheelbarrows of "mountain dirt" to make his garden soil rich and fertile. On May 15th this year I told James, "We have to plant the tomatoes today! It's May 15th. Grandpa always said the tomatoes had to be in by the 15th." and we did without a day to spare!
My grandfather loved my grandmother. He loved to talk about their courtship. Grandma was 17 when she married Grandpa. It was during the Depression when they met and he was working on one of those government projects to get men working and had to walk miles just to visit & court her. He always told me what great "gams" she had and how they could "sure cut a rug."
Sometimes I drive by small houses in Murray and see the neon blue reflection of a TV and I have this overwhelming desire to have a Pepsi. That was grandpa's drink of choice and you learn early on when visiting to just say, "Yes, Grandpa. I'd love a Pepsi." as he's going to ask you every 20 minutes until you do.
I watched my grandparents grow old, deteriorate and becoming shells of their former self's. When they passed away it was not the sick and struggling old folks that I missed. It was the grandma of my childhood who teased me that she would "beat my britches down the street"- yet I knew she would never lay a hand on me. The grandma that let me wear her Aqua Net hairspray with glitter in it for no reason at all and call me Wendy Sue. (Even though my middle name is Lee.)
I missed the grandpa who would listen with rapt attention as I played for him-at his request-on the piano during family parties when no one else in the room was listening. He would clap like I had just played a fabulous concert. At my grandfather's viewing the room was so quiet. There was a piano and a hymn book. Please know I am not a great piano player, but in an attempt to fill the emptiness and I guess to play for my grandfather one last time, I sat at the piano and played. I always pick the hymns with the least amount of sharps or flats and I muddle through-often times just plunking out the melody with my top hand but that day, I would just flip to a page and play. Sharps and flats were no object, my top hand played with my bottom hand like never before. People would walk by and say "I didn't know you could play piano like this." Neither did I and I don't. I can't. And I never have again. I can't explain it, it just happened.
I can't remember the last time I went to decorate the graves with my Grandma and I don't think I've visited Grandma & Grandpa Johnson's graves since they were buried. It's not that I don't love them or remember them, I remember them each year during planting and canning season. They each have not a day but a season. I wonder if decorating graves is a thing of the past? I mean if I don't do it and teach my children to do it, then who will?
Probably no one and that's just as well in my book because all this death and remembrance stuff really bothers me. Not that Memorial Day bothers me, I'm all for this day honoring the men and women that defend our country. It's when it comes to our own loved ones that are not soldiers and veterans. I told James if I die before he does to bury my in a homemade pine box and forget all this craziness about satin lined coffins, mahogany finishes and all the other burial hoopla stuff that make funerals so expensive. If you visit my grave-don't bring me flowers-I won't be there and they'll just die. I'd rather you buy Chinese food and have a party or something. Doesn't that sound nicer? Or maybe rather than a certain "day" to remember and honor your loved one's you could remember them when you do something they love? Like in my case each time you attend a play or in my mom's case when you sew or my aunts when you quilt or like with my grandparents when I can or garden. Remembering and honoring shouldn't require flowers and guilt. Maybe it's as simple as writing a blog post about those you love that have gone on before you. Perhaps that is much more "memorable" and pleasant then hauling flowers, traipsing through a grave yard, and getting mad at your child for trying to leap from headstone to headstone?
7 of my blog friends said something...:
I really enjoyed your blog. I have lots of remembering moments too and I love to share them with my children... They have one great grandma they love, but who has forgotten who they are this year and we like to remember the good/fun things she always did with/for us. she always had dough set aside for her grandkids to make their own rolls and we had our own small pans too.
What sweet memories you have of your grandparents! And I love how you have honored them by the way you have recounted those memories. You do it well!
What a great tribute to your loved ones - I loved reading it. I, too, have those same memories that come back at odd times - how to make a certain recipe or sing a certain song - and those are way better than obligatory remembering on a federally designated holiday. Very sweet.
I am so happy that you have so many good memories of grandpa and grandma. I have a hard time remembering my childhood there but it helps me remember to here stories from other people. I always rememner grandma's pickled beets. NO ONE cans like grandma! And I remember helping grandpa "husk" the corn in the garden and gather the eggs in the chicken coop. Infact My husband and I just purchased some chicks and I built a chicken coop. Such good times and so many great memories there. We should make a rememberance book and have everyone write down their favorite memories of grandma and grandpa and put them in a rememberance book. That would be so fun to have!
You are inspirational, Wendy. Your children will be so glad you blogged with so much depth and feeling. By the way, what is a "gam"? I've never heard of that.
It's an old expression for legs. I looked it up just to be sure.
"Gams: A nice, long pair of female legs."
love the story, you do have one family member serving, your cousin.... But by his request, his name not to be mentioned....he says "thank you" for not forgetting all these soldiers...
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