My Grandmother

I feel like writing in a fancy voice tonight. I don’t know why exactly, but I think it’s rather enjoyable and refreshing.

Tonight I had a really great time getting to know my Grandma Hofheins. She’s been sick of late and since I live beneath her I try to check in on her from time to time. This evening as I was going out I ran into her neighbor and best friend Nancy, who was leaving my grandma’s front porch. She was wearing a robe and slippers, her usual attire. Nancy had gone to visit with her and my grandma didn’t answer. There were lights on in the house and she thought maybe she’d fallen asleep and forgotten about the lights. I thought it’d be a good thing if my grandma had fallen asleep since she’d been sick. I reassured Nancy that I would check on my grandma when I got back and turn off the lights if she were sleeping.

When I got back about a half hour later I noticed the lights were still on. I went upstairs and found my grandma in the kitchen. She was surprised to see me and told me she had just recently woken up. This was at 10 pm. She had taken a nap at 3pm and slept the whole afternoon. She didn’t have her hearing aids in so she couldn’t hear Nancy at the door. I asked about her health and we began to have a very pleasant conversation. I really love talking to my grandma; she gets very lively and we laugh and talk about our lives and things. It’s really been fun to see and talk to her more since I moved down below her.

She had a little game of cards with questions on it on her counter. I asked her about it and she said it was given to her by my Aunt Debbie but my grandma had never played it. I thought it’d be fun to ask these “getting to know you” type questions to my grandma. Although I’ve known her my whole life I really don’t think I could answer many of those questions about her. I recently had a discussion in one of my classes about how you can know a person your whole life and think that you really know them, yet they can always surprise you.

Anyway, it was really fun to talk to my grandma and to hear her stories about the vacations they went on as a family, and how she met my grandpa. It turns out that the luckiest thing that ever happened to my grandma was catching her first glimpse of my grandpa hiding under a table in school. She couldn’t remember why he was hiding under the table, but she knew then that she wanted to meet him. As it turns out, it was my grandma who asked my grandpa to a girl’s choice dance as their first date. In fact, she said she had to ask him to three more dances before grandpa had asked her on a date. I thought that was just so cute, and it says a lot about the strength of my grandma.

I really enjoyed sharing with her some of my experiences too. We both took turns answering each question. She really became interested in what I had been learning about in school. I was able to share with her some of the things I’ve enjoyed, specifically in my Chaos and Compassion Literature class. I had recently read Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard. In it Annie Dillard talks about God and our relationship to him. It addresses the age old question of “why do bad things happen to good people” and how we can be sanctified by our trials and grief to find joy in life. She was interested so I got the book and read some passages and we talked about what it all meant. It was really amazing to get my grandma’s perspective on things.

One passage that we enjoyed says:

"Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time. I worship each god, I praise each day splintered down, splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading, at dawn fast over the mountains split…I open my eyes. The god lifts from the water. His head fills the bay. He is Puget Sound, the Pacific; his breast rises from pastures; his fingers are firs; islands slide wet down his shoulders… Today’s god rises, his long eyes flecked in clouds. He flings his arms, spreading colors; he arches, cupping sky in his belly; he vaults, vaulting and spread, holding all and spread on me like skin."

Although this is about the sunrise and greeting a new day it reminded my grandma of the sunsets that she loves to see from her window; the rays of light shooting into the sky and reflecting off the mountains. It was really cool to hear my grandma talk about these things. Mostly it was nice to just sit and talk to her on equal level. I increased my love and admiration for her today.