When my grandpa joined the Army, he asked my grandma--his friend and neighbor--if she would send him a picture and write to him so that his name would get called during mail call. She wrote to him. I don't know what exactly she wrote, but it was enough to capture my grandpa's heart. In 1938, they got married. And just like that, Grandma was an Army wife.

My grandma often talked about how much she loved the Army. Even just a few days before she passed away, she said again to my youngest brother, "I loved the Army." Considering this small town girl hadn't been to a big city until she was 17, getting a life of moving from place to place--all over the country and the world--was an exciting life for her. It was hard too, but she loved it. She did not want to be a farmer's wife. She grew up a farmer's daughter, and she figured whatever the Army had to offer her was bound to be better than farming.

So many of her stories of Army life blend together in my mind. There were homes that had bugs; homes that had squeaky floors; homes that needing painting. In Japan, they had women who helped her with the cleaning and admired my aunt and my mom's blonde hair. Oh, how she loved having women help her with the daily chores.

 

Since I got to travel quite a bit with my grandparents, I often was able to see the different places my grandpa had been stationed, sometimes even driving by the house they might have lived in. In 1997, my family went to Hawaii with my grandparents. We drove through the neighborhood they had once lived in; we walked around Tripler Army Hospital where my grandpa had worked; we visited the friends they had had when they lived in Honolulu.

   

It has never been far from my mind that my grandpa was in the military. I can hardly bear to watch World War II movies because I always picture my grandpa as a young kid fighting in the war. He didn't talk much about his Army days.

My grandma, on the other hand, loved to talk about her Army days. Her experience makes me smile. It wouldn't be a life I would want, but then again, I didn't have the childhood she had. From Washington to Oregon to California to Nevada to Japan and finally Hawaii, it was the Army that took my grandma where she wanted to go. 

She might have been a small town girl who grew up during the Great Depression, but she had big dreams. That's why she loved the Army.

My grandma enjoyed dolls. She didn't collect them or have lots of them, but she had a couple of very old dolls that she kept for awhile. This photo of her with her dolls was one of her favorites. She loved this picture so much, she had it framed and sitting in her bedroom.

I love this picture...it's so sweet: Those dolls sitting on the chair, my grandma looking like a little doll herself, the snow, the trees (clearly this picture was taken in Minnesota...there are few trees in North Dakota, and none where she lived).

I know Grandma wished she could have stayed a kid a little longer than she did. When she was 14, her dad made her quit school so she could help her mom take care of her six siblings. Her dad also hired her out as a "mother's helper" to other families; he wasn't a cruel man, but they needed the money and she was the oldest. She always resented not being able to finish school like her siblings did.

This picture captured a day when Grandma would have been allowed to be a kid, enjoying her dolls on a winter's day. A fond memory indeed.

After the funeral, there was a reception. And after the reception, there was the graveside service with just family.

 

The service itself was short. We had all said whatever it was we wanted to say at the funeral. We weren't there to talk.

We were there for some vague feeling of closure.

 

Not everyone thought it was a good idea to witness the burial, but I knew I had to be there. I had to see my grandma buried. I had to put the white rose on the casket, watch my daughters put the rose on the casket. I needed to watch the casket placed in the ground and see the dirt pile up.

The heavy machinery rolled in, dark exhaust fumes temporarily masking the scent of the hundreds of flowers that surrounded us. The workers were exact. Pour the dirt. Move the dirt around. Pour some more dirt. Tap the dirt with the backhoe. I was amazed at how one of the men was able to finesse the machine around with great precision and gentleness. The three (or maybe four?) men were respectful. Someone wondered later if they were acting differently on account of the 40 family members watching them.

No, said the chaplin. He had witnessed hundreds of burials, and those men were always the same. Respectful. Hard working. Good men, he called them.

 

They smoothed the dirt, arranged the headstone, placed the grass. Perhaps even now the lines of the sod have faded away and the grave looks as if it's always been there. Only the shiny "2009" plate will give away the newness of grief that grows with the grass.

Sydney watched the machinery, and she watched the dirt. She didn't say anything.

I held Jules the whole time, and she narrated the process. "The man is pouring dirt on Grandma," she said. "Now she can't play with us."

"No," I said. "She can't play with us."

After a second load of dirt was placed into the grave, Jules was more concerned. "They're covering her up. We need to get a shovel to get Grandma."

I cried until Jules wiped the tears off my cheeks as she said, "You're dripping all over your face, Momma."

The chaplin had told my parents that seeing the burial was important for little kids. If they walk away and the casket is still above ground they wonder what happens next. Will someone take their loved one? Will someone watch over them? Why are we leaving them there?

I didn't want my girls to wonder. I didn't want them to be afraid either. I wanted them to know that Grandma was safe. I can't speak for their experience, but they were okay when we walked away.

Watching the whole burial process was important for me. I couldn't have left my grandma until I knew she was safe. Even though I already know her soul is safe in Heaven, I still had to witness that difficult hour on Friday afternoon. For all that, though, it was awful watching the casket sink into the ground, awful watching the dirt pour in, awful to be there.

We need to get a shovel, Jules had said.

If only it was that easy.

I love you and miss you, Grams. Always.

{Photos from Sarah.}

 

From the day I was born my grandma was a huge part of my life. She lived next door, and unless one or the other of us was on vacation, I saw her almost every day for 18 years.

We'd get home from school, and she'd walk over and start fixing us an after-school snack.

We'd get home from school, and we'd find her in the kitchen fixing stew for dinner.

We'd get home from wherever we had been, and she would be there. And when she wasn't at our house, then we'd go over to her house. She'd put rollers in my hair and paint my fingernails. Just about every Saturday of my teen years, she and I went shopping because that's what we loved doing.

When we moved back to the Family Farm this past summer, again I got to see her almost every day. My daughters would often run over to my parents' house--where my grandma lived now--and visit with grandma. And get gum from her. When you're two, getting gum is the best there is, and grandma was definitely the best.

At the funeral last week, my sister told the story of how one of her college friends commented about us being raised by our grandparents. "Well, sort of," my sister had replied. "I have parents." The friend persisted: But weren't your grandparents the ones who raised you? No. Or rather, not exactly. Our parents raised us. And our grandparents were there to help raise us in a different kind of way. Not by disciplining us, but by showering us with endless amounts of attention and love.

Losing my grandma has been the hardest loss I've ever experienced. I feel displaced. Out of sorts. I burst into tears by looking at my clothes organized by color, just like my grandma's closet. I lose track of my thoughts and have taken to writing down ideas on scraps of paper so I don't forget. Even in this short bit of writing here I noticed (before editing it out) that I had written "they lived next door" multiple times, as if that's the piece of information I need to convey the most.

She lived next door.

She was like a parent to me.

And now she is gone, leaving a huge void in my life that I know will be filled up with wonderful memories, but aren't just yet. Right now it's just a void. Right now her bedroom is her room...without her in it.

I'm spending this month writing about my grandma because it's just something I have to do. Writing has always been my way of working through life, and I'm hoping that by writing through this loss I'll find my way again.

I love you and miss you, Grams. Always.

 

Reading Maps

I reach under my daughter's chin
and gently drum my fingers--
a movement I learned from my grandma
who in doing that would look into my eyes,
smile,
and strum her fingers beneath my grin,
playing a lovely tune.

No matter how old my grandma got
I picture her hands the same:
wrinkled and worn with love,
a map folded so many times
in searching for directions in getting from here to there.

The map on the palm of her hands
gives directions on how to raise four children
moving from place to place, year to year,
following the orders of the military.

Her hands held my mother's hand
as they crossed the Pacific Ocean
on an ocean liner full of sea-sick people
(except my mother)
traveling from Japan to home--
yet another,
in a whole memory of homes.

I smell love on my grandma's hands,
the scent of lavender, of vanilla,
of roses and detergent and baby lotion.
I know no one who can clean like she does,
get laundry as white as she can,
make blankets smell as wonderful as
the smell that I smell in her hands.

I hate to wash the clothes, the blankets,
the towels, the coats, the aprons that she
passes along from her hands to mine
for fear that I will wash away the smell
that carries part of my grandma.

In her left hand I read the path that says
you must be right-handed
you must give up your native language
you must stay home from school at 14
to work
to clean for others
to help raise your six siblings
on this farm in North Dakota.

Studying her right hand I see the roads
that led her from North Dakota
to Oregon California Nevada Japan Hawaii
and finally Washington, the Family Farm,
where she holds me and teaches me the directions
and stories of her handy maps.

I see her hands together
holding her great-granddaughter and rocking her to sleep
holding the pie dough and slapping it into a ball
holding the book she reads to my daughter
holding the bucket of August's blueberries
holding the flag that the soldier gave her
when my grandpa couldn't hold her hand any longer.

She opens her hands, and I see the roads
that lead to faithfulness and love
and all the places I want to go someday.
I press my hands into hers
hoping my palms memorize the paths my grandma took
in getting from there to here.

Originally posted February 23, 2007

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your prayers and kind words. It has been a great comfort to me.