May 2003 Issue - Essay # 10
My
Grandmother's Garden
By Donna L. Calvert
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Since
my visit, I haven't been able to get her off my mind.
She has been slipping lately, and that has given me an urgency of
mind to recapture my memories of her when she was more vital.
My grandmother is 94. She
came to In
some ways, she was the prototype Jewish grandmother.
I never saw her eat although her size bespoke of numerous meals.
She certainly saw to it, however, that the rest of us ate--plenty. She also had a deep
seated and unnatural fear that we, her grandchildren, would wet the bed
when we came to spend the night with her.
None of us were bed-wetters.
Still, she would pay us to "make pee pee" before we
went to bed. It was a joke
with us. We (my two
sisters and I) would go in the bathroom, take a cup, fill it with water, and
pour it loudly into the toilet, knowing that she was standing outside
the door listening. Still
she was very clever. She
lived in a flat and, forever fearing that her landlord would hear a
noise, was constantly finding ways to keep us quiet.
She would play a game with us by giving us each a sheet of paper
and creating a contest to see who could draw the most tiny pictures on
the sheet of paper. My
siblings and I were naturally competitive, and this game would take us
out of commission for long periods of time.
That is, of course, until someone started breathing someone
else's air--then all hell would break loose.
If you have siblings or more than one child you know what I mean.
We could fight over anything. I
think one of the most disturbing things about my grandmother is that she
claimed to know a little girl who died, or was at least seriously
maimed, by everything I ever wanted to try to do as a child.
To this day I cannot sleep with covers over my head, forever
thinking of the little girl she claimed to have known, who died doing
just the same thing. And
let’s not even talk about walking with your shoes untied, crossing in
the middle of the block, running with a sucker in your mouth, or talking
on the telephone during a thunderstorm.
Actually, I think there may be some validity to that last one. When
I was little, my grandfather used to belittle my grandmother
incessantly. I didn't
understand then that it was merely the ranting of a small man who knew,
deep inside, that he could never measure up to the woman he wed.
He would be brutal to her over her mistakes with the English
language. I admit that
reading a note from her in English could sometimes be a challenge.
But the truth is, English was not her first language, or even her
second. She was fluent in
Polish, Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish and then English. Sometimes,
when I am feeling particularly daunted by the challenges I face, I think
of her for inspiration. She
came to a new country and made a life for herself.
That alone is absolutely amazing.
In her lifetime she learned to accept remarkable things as a way
of life--television and microwave ovens come to mind immediately.
She never drove, but could navigate She
was, in reality, very articulate and funny, and in those rare moments
when you would find yourself alone with her, late at night, she would
speak of her other life, in
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Author's Biography
Donna
Calvert was born in E-mail
Donna at donnalcalvert@aol.com |
Essay
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