Hold It

It's hard for me to look at Clover these days without remembering LB's paternal grandma -- elegantly feeble with just a faint tinge of rancor -- who died in 2002.  She was not grandmotherly in a hand-braided rug sort of way: she was mid-century modern, pouring over the entire newspaper, every day, with her giant magnifying glass. 

Having grown up essentially without grandparents, it was easy for me to call LB's grandmother Grandma, in the same way I had called the ex's grandmother Grandma.  Both women were from the South, but there the resemblance ends.  Ex's grandma had always been very kind of me, but even when the ex and I were together, it was clear she was uncomfortable with my...multiculturalism.  She would have preferred I was just plain Jewish.  That might have been odd and hard to get used to, but it would have been a tidy, one-word answer to the question what are you?

I was apprehensive about meeting LB's Grandma because you know that older generation: they can get hung up on little data points like that their eldest treasure, their first grandson, is heavily involved with a woman who is still technically married to someone else.  But LB's grandma was a clean slate person, and I felt no judgment from her.  She seemed to take me as I came: this young woman Joe is seeing who --go figure -- makes him smile.  When we left her house that evening, she took my hand, leaned in and said, "I'll see you again."

It didn't worry me much that both our families had been a little reluctant to get too cross-attached to either of us since we looked for all the world like a rebound relationship, one in which LB was playing the role of Soft Place to Land.  I knew that time would tell, we'd get married, we'd have children, years would pass, and everyone would figure out that I wasn't going anywhere.  But it felt good to have someone whose opinion mattered verbally acknowledge that it was safe to get to know me.

Second memorable quote, two years later: I'm in the hospital having just given birth to Sabina, and Grandma has called to congratulate me.  She did not ask if They knew what caused the missing hand, or if They had ideas on what should be done about it.  What she said was, "Oh, and about that left hand?  Don't worry about it.  What does a person need a left hand for, anyway?  I may just have mine removed, now that I'm thinking about it."

Quote the third: LB and I are are visiting Grandma in her retirement home with four children in tow, all ages four and under.  It is our last visit before we move from the Bay Area to Wisconsin, and though we don't say it, we're all pretty sure this is the last visit to Grandma, period.  As we are about to leave, Grandma says, "Now, Jen?" like she's just remembering something.  "Jen, you do whatever you want." 

This quote spoke volumes.  Our decision to move to Wisconsin when LB's entire department at LS&Co. was "reorganized" out of existence was, as you can imagine, not a popular one with his California-based family.  There were practical reasons to go to Wisconsin: it's a much cheaper place to be unemployed, and since LB was going to start a new career, one we had no idea would "take," his Levi's severance would last a whole lot longer in Wisconsin than it would in the Bay Area.  But let's not overlook the obvious: we were going to my stomping ground, to be near my parents, my brothers, my Great Lake, my hometown, and my gastroenterologist.  Grandma's advice showed that not only had she heard a few things about the Sullivan Opinion on this decision, but that I should ignore it.

I like to think Grandma did whatever she wanted, and this picture of her reclining with bon-bons makes a convincing argument.

This afternoon when I brought Olive home from school, I found Clover perched atop the dirty clothes pile.  She gave a small wag of her tail and looked at me as if to say, "I could come aaalllll the way over there and greet you.  Or you could just be a love, spare me the labour, and reach in here to pet me." 

I remembered the last time I spoke to Grandma on the phone, shortly before she died.  I asked her how she was feeling and she said, "Jen, at my age, you find yourself a comfortable position and just hold it."

Comments

[Kathy]

Aw. Head-pats and chin-scratches to Clover. I totally want to be LB's grandma when I grow up.

[Heather P]

Well I love Grandma's fainting couch and her fan and the bon bons! She looks like fun!

[Michelle]

Grandma knew how to live! :)

[Gail]

Hope you listened well....Grandma was a wise woman. Bet you miss her.

p.s. Loving the time line.

[Barbara]

You have to stop beating yourself up about that early marriage. You remind me of a line in the 19th c. Russian novel Oblomov where Katherine feels she can't marry her true love because she'd been in love once. (can't be in love more than once in 19th c. Russia I guess.)

He just tells her she was •mistaken• about the first guy. She made a mistake!

[ssheers]

Grandma was wise and adorable. I want a couch like that and an orange sweater like that and, above all, a fan like that.

Clover is adorable, too.

[Tamara]

Isaac found one of my fans yesterday and was thrilled and confused: "Mommy, you haven't used this for a HUNDRED YEARS!"

I have been loving this story told over several days. Congratulations to you for having the guts to do the right thing, even after you did the "stupid" thing (marrying the wrong man---I did it once, too), even though it was messy and tough. I remember when you wrote about Lindsay Lohan---no, was it one of those Kardashian girls who was only married for 63 days or whatever it was? You showed so much compassion. Sometimes we are so bad at understanding what's in our best interests, what's the right thing to do. That's how it goes. And NOW you are surrounding by a loving family.

[Tamara]

Well done.

[Robin]

I think I like LB's Grandma!

[Em]

What a beautiful tribute to Grandma.

[Amelia]

LB's grandma and my grandma would have gotten along famously!