Kim's Thoughts

This is about my Grandma. Grandma passed away on April 3, 1995. Although she’s been gone from this earth for 13 years, she is as close to me as she ever was — right there in my heart and on my shoulder as one of my three Guardian Angels. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that she’s here watching over me — she visits me in my dreams and I can hear her whispering advice in the form of thoughts popping in my head that tell me what she would have likely said about the situation. My Mom, brother, and I lived with my Grandparents when we were little, so there was a strong bond there.

Grandma was so beautiful when she was a young woman — her family nickname was Babe. She suffered from nerve-deafness – she was totally deaf in one ear and about 75% or more deaf in the other. She wore a hearing aid and could hear sounds and, for the most part, what people were saying — if they talked loud enough — but, she mostly read their lips.

My grandparents weren’t well off – they were farmers in their younger years and then worked very hard most of their lives for the right to own a lovely home and have a little money saved up for retirement. They had a “summer home” on Lake Ontario, but only because Grandpa built it board by board himself in the mid-late 1950s.

Some of the things I think of when I think of Grandma:

• Food!!!! A lot of my memories about Grandma center around food of some form or another. We had lots and lots and lots of family gatherings at Grandma’s house – holidays, reunions, special events, etc. Grandma was a great cook and always had a ton of food on the dinner table!
• On the subject of food — Grandma was famous for her pies, but even more so for her Apple Dumpling!!! She made this fabulous dessert for all big family dinners and upon request for other dinners or special events. Her apple dumpling was baked and then just before it was served, she would make a clear sauce to pour over it hot. She was the only one who could make the sauce — not that she was keeping the way she made it a secret — to the contrary – she gave us all the recipe, showed us how to make it, and described all the little tips about making it!!! But, even following the recipe and her tips to the letter, it has never turned out the same for anyone but her!!!! There must have been something in the way she held the spoon or something………………….whatever the case, the tradition of apple dumpling the way Grandma made it unfortunately died with her!!!!
• Grandma worked for many years in the lab at the local Hunts factory in our town – mostly testing ketchup. You rarely see glass ketchup bottles anymore, but did you know that you could tell if the seal on a glass ketchup bottle was good or not by holding the bottle in one hand and hitting the top with the palm of your other hand? If the seal was good, it would make a loud “squeaking” sound when you rapped on the lid like that. Just one of the many things she taught me…….
• She was an incredible seamstress — she made a lot of clothes for herself and all of us. She also did a lot of crochet work and knitting. I have her antique sewing table – it is in my guest room as a bed side table. I also have her sewing machine, but I don’t sew, so it is kind of a waste with me. I have some things she crocheted, as well.
• She loved her “stories” — I don’t remember which soaps she followed, but I think they were the “CBS” ones. During the summer breaks, we would be home all day with her — she would sit us down for a nice lunch promptly at 12:00 noon, watch the noon news while we ate, and then the “stories” would come on.
• Grandma attended every one of my “performances” – I was in the Drama Club in school, so she came to all those performances – she came when I was in the Senior Play – and she cried when I was performing a dramatic one-act play for a contest (which I won, by the way) because the character I was playing was a man in solitary confinement and she couldn’t bare the thought of my being in prison!!!
• Grandma loved to travel – she wasn’t much of a wide spread traveler, but she enjoyed being on the go and could pack a suitcase and be ready to run in a seconds notice!!! Since both Grandma and Grandpa often had seasonal jobs at Hunts or Birdseye, they would drive to Florida to visit relatives in the winter months. She loved getting in the motor home with my Mom and Dad and taking off for visits here in NC to see me and to SC to visit my brother. She also enjoyed traveling with her sister (my great Aunt Betty) to interesting places – they did a New England tour that she particularly enjoyed.
• Also on a “sorta like traveling” note — she loved going on Sunday drives! Grandma didn’t drive – Grandpa wouldn’t allow it!!! Her compromise for giving in on his insistence that she NOT get a driver’s license was that he had better be there for her when she wanted to go somewhere!!!! So, they would get in the car on most Sundays and just drive around the country side – taking in the scenery and ending up wherever they ended up – stopping for dinner or an ice cream or milkshake somewhere along the way. Many times, that involved my brother and I riding along. They would point out locations of interest and give us a history lesson of the way things were versus how they were at the time of the rides!!!!

Grandma suffered from severe arthritis – her final years were riddled with pain! She also had a series of strokes, TIAs (mini strokes) and congestive heart failure. She had to have a shunt in her head to help drain excess fluid from around her brain and had a tough surgery on her knee. So, she suffered a lot in the last several years of her life. My Mom did the best she could to keep her comfortable and made sure she had whatever she needed or wanted. She is in a better place now – where she can hear the birds chirping and be pain free, young, and beautiful!!!

Grandma lived a hard, but full life and she felt blessed for what she had. I learned so many valuable life lessons from her — she was an incredible woman and I love and miss her so very much!!!