in memoriam

 

"I, myself, have always found that if I examine something, it's less scary, and that's kind of the way I feel about confronting pain." - Joan Didion

It's the first day of the new year and that lends itself to pondering the age old what the hell happened to last year? 

People tell you when you're a kid that time will move faster as you get older and with every calendar I drop into my wastebasket on Jan 1st I can't help but think, holy crap, they were right. Where did it go? What. Who? I think that's just normal aging and being busy in the day-to-day grind that is the maintenance of our human existence, but also 2021 felt very much like season 2 of 2020, and I just wasn't a fan of the first season. I guess there was some solid character development, but for the most part I am underwhelmed.

As per usual the new year in Minnesota usually also means extra cold weather. Which gives you a chance to throw on another sweater and decide, "Well I am not doing anything today. My nose hair will freeze in this. It's not worth it."

And that's how we gauge life in Minnesota. Is an activity worth freezing your nose hair for? 

While I sit here and ponder the literal death of the past calendar and the birth of a new. I am left pondering Death. Bleak Joanna. I mean it's hard not to. Did you see this list compiled by NPR? It's worth a scroll. I'll wait. No really. It's a hell of a read when you think about it. All those names. All those lives gone. 

That was a lot of death right? Probably not more than a usual year, but when it's all compiled like that. It's a lot. Death simply is. Change. It comes for us all. No one escapes death. One transition into another. One thing has to end in order for another to begin, and so 2021 rolls out, and here comes 2022. 

I have a pretty neutral feeling about death. I am fairly sure that was based on how I was raised. I was taught that when you die you just go to sleep. And that sounds nice to me. I love sleep! 

What I am trying to say is, it's not like I am seeking it out tomorrow or anything, but a forever nap does sound nice some days. I also just think this death neutrality might also be attributed to my super practical Midwestern upbringing.

Allow me to illustrate.

Exhibit A:
My grandma Vivian was always old as long as I could remember. Your classic Midwest grandmother really. To me she was floral polyester and doughy warm arms and white on top like a late season dandelion. Her voice was gravel and yet softness at the same time and sort of warbly. Her specialty dish was white bread with butter on it. Did she make the bread? Not that I recall, but she buttered it thick. And you can dip it in some kind of gravy. There will always be gravy. It will be brown, and taste like a hug. Also potatoes. Being so near to spud country it just makes sense why there would always be potatoes. Fried, boiled, smashed. Mmm. Taters.

These are my grandparents. When I dream of them, this is who I see.
 Grandpa Francis and I have the same taste in slippers I see.

Vivian was born in Iowa. 

How cute was she?

She's a good Catholic. She graduates high school and marries Francis. Another good Catholic and they set their roots in the Red River Valley, in Downer specifically, and have ten kids and heaps of grandkids. 

Vivian and Francis in the middle.
Her parents - Hampton and Ida are on the left.
His parents - Frank and Katie are on the right.

For me she is my far away grandma. They live 4 hours away and we only get up there a couple times a year, so I don't have a ton of memories of her. Luckily my father, Vivian's second son, is a great storyteller. Through his characterizations and retellings of family lore I have a sort-of picture of her before she was a grandma.

Grandma Vivian, her sister-in-law and brother-in-law, and Grandpa Francis

My dad's stories of his mom are about her being a mother, of course. How she taught the boys to sew buttons and iron because chores are chores and everyone pitches in. She had TEN kids, of course everyone needs to pitch in. Some of his stories are about the times when having those ten kids wore her down and I find them so deeply relatable. 

My grandmother was very quiet and warbly by the time I show on the scene, but she was a pot slammer when she got mad according to dad. My dad's a pot slammer too, so he would know. Some of the stories he remembers are about the times when they'd sent her to her limits. 

I mentioned earlier they lived in a small town. Very small. Tiny even. When 90% of the town's child population share your genetic background, you naturally become the default hangout, the meet-up, and the general congregation point for the rest of the town's child population. The scene I am attempting to lay here is that there were always kids around, and not all of them are hers. My dad recalls that one day they were horsing around in living room, probably wrestling on the couch that was broken and held up by a soup can on one end because of all the Lone Ranger reenactments that had happened on the sofa over the years and this one particular day she had HAD IT!

"Stop acting like animals!" she uncharacteristically barked at them. This was shocking because she didn't usually yell. What happened next is the stuff of family legend and was even more shocking than the yelling.

"How would you like it if I acted like that?" she queried. Then she took her little bowling ball body and ran across the living room full tilt. Like a linebacker on a blitz to a quarterback and I mean no one was blocking her. She then leapt into the air, did a half gainer and lands in the swivel side chair which spun her from her momentum and promptly flipped over. It was athletic to be sure, but as the old timers are fond to say, "she'd gone ass over tea kettle." 

My father said all the jaws of his siblings hit the floor at the same moment their mother did. Shocked silence befell the hooligans for once because they were immobilized by what they'd just witnessed.

"HELP ME UP!" was curtly barked from behind the chair her tiny feet flipping helplessly in the air and then the stunned children helped right the mother they had clearly broken this day. Unfortunately for her, it wouldn't be the only time they broke Ma.

Reliable sources tell me, ok my father, say an oft repeated phrase from her was, "You kids are gonna send me to Fergus Falls!"

Background: Fergus Falls is where the state mental hospital is located and it's roughly a 40-mile distance from where they live.

Victorian Spa? No. Mental Health Hospital.

Once and a while the kids knew when they had pushed Ma to the limit because she'd just quietly walk out of the house and start heading down the road, and she'd just keep walking.

As word would spread among the siblings that mom had hit the highway out of town, again, then the speculation would begin. Was this it? Was this the day they'd pushed too far and sent her to Fergus Falls for real?

"You think she's going to Fergus?"

"Probably because of your dumb face."

"She's not going to Fergus!"

"How do you know?"

"She didn't take any clothes with her. Or a suitcase. If she was really going she'd at least take her pajamas and her toothbrush."

"Nah, my friends cousin said they give you a toothbrush when you get there."

Years later they found out most often she just walked up the road to Mum McCullum's house. Mum was just an older lady who didn't have kids. She was also British and usually had tea on the stove and so grandma would sit with Mum and spend some time away from the hooligans destroying her couch for a couple hours.

The picture he paints is vivid for me. I can see it as if I was there with him, so I of course believe him, but this was just not the lady I knew. My grandma was just soft and grandmotherly only. She never yelled. She smelled nice. For me she was only ever warm friendly patience, but that's probably because I wasn't drilling a broom handle into the ceiling in the living room like an animal.

One memory my dad and I both share of her was her reading to us. She read to them as kids. He read to me as a kid. She read to me as a kid. She was always reading, and sometimes she'd offer to read to me, I just had to pick out the book. I liked to snuggle with her while she read me the story about how there once was an old lady who swallowed a fly. She goes on to swallow a whole host of other animals to deal with her fly problem, but spoiler alert it doesn't end well for her.

"I don't know why she swallowed a fly?" it went.

"Perhaps she'll die?"

This for some reason was my go-to book. I don't know if it was the weird artwork, or the sing-song yet matter-of-fact way my grandma read it in that gravely yet honeyed voice, but I always requested that she read me that particular book and she always obliged.

My grandpa died first, and it must have got her thinking about her own mortality I suppose, as it would. I have a distinct memory of going to her little senior living apartment after grandpa had died. I was maybe 8 or 9? For sure not double digits yet. She pulled me aside and in her soft yet somehow gravel voice she said, "I want you to pick out something you might like."

"Like?" I wasn't following.

My grandma said, "Well, when I am gone. Is there something of mine you would like? Maybe a candy dish, or this letter opener? Or a book?" My grandma didn't have much, but she wanted to make sure whatever I liked, I was sure to inherit. I didn't quite get it but as an opportunistic kid, I was just thinking, "Cool, grandma is giving me a present!" And it turns out she was.

I looked around her small apartment. What would an 8-year-old want? I remember walking down her small hallway and seeing these little paintings that had metal gold frames around them. I fancied myself a bit of an art snob even back then and I thought these were the most priceless heirlooms in the whole joint, so I said, "I really like those", and pointed at the little portraits. 

She smiled broadly and said, "Ok. Those are very nice. That's the Blue Boy! Let's put your name on them!" And she got a little sticky piece of tape and wrote my name in her shaky little scrawl and we taped it to the back of the pictures and went back to the kitchen. Probably to eat some gravy or possibly beans? Maybe potatoes? For sure white bread though.

Exhibit B:
This isn't a phenomenon exclusive to my family either. This mater-of-fact nature of death. My best friend and I have always joked that her father is just a super practical man. That there were many occasions where he would pull her aside solemnly and say, "This is probably worth something, so if I die, you make sure to come get it." I laughed, picturing her father uttering that phrase in his thick Minnesotan accent.

Then one night when we were in our early 20's we stopped in to visit her folks. Her dad was very excited because they were going on a trip to do some snorkeling and he got a new underwater camera. He was extoling the many features of the new camera, how the special case was pressurized to so many feet so if it fell off the boat it may survive to a certain depth. I was nodding when he said it. The magic phrase, the one she'd told me he was prone to speaking. 

"This is probably worth something, so if I die, make sure to come and get it."

I almost choked on my pork chop, but there it was. The stalwart practicality of it all. In fairness to him, it was a real nice camera.

Back to Exhibit A - My Grandma Passes
My grandma ends up living several more years after my grandpa passed. I am a teenager when she finally passes too. I didn't get to see her before she died. We knew she was failing in health and in the hospital, but I was in the school play. I have a performance. Plus, I am working at the local gas station. If after my shift, I can get away I might be able to drive up...but she passes. I cry in the walk-in cooler. I didn't get to say goodbye. I have regret. My part in the play was literally one line, I didn't need to be there, anyone could have covered my shift at the gas station, and I thought there would be more time. 

I go to her funeral, and it's weird. She's in her coffin, but it doesn't look like her. She's not there anymore. I don't know where she is, but this isn't really her. At the funeral, there is some incense, I don't like how it smells. This is one of the few times I have been in a Catholic church. It is wild to me. So different from a Kingdom Hall. 

After the funeral we have these amazing, potatoes in the church hall afterwards. All the things that people say about Midwest funeral food is true. It's potluck heaven! It's the bland carby balm your soul needs to deal with the fact that your grandmother who found ketchup to be a bit on the spicy side is no longer with us and you know you're going to miss her. Oh, and those little silver-dollar rolls with butter on them. She'd have really loved those.

Cream of something soup is the blood that courses through all our veins in times of tragedy.

After the funeral we gather back at the tiny apartment she lived in. All the grandkids get a quilt. She made "crazy quilts" of old scrap fabric and there are enough of them that we all get one. I get a silver teapot, and my aunt Mary hands me these little gold pictures.

Sophistication.

I had forgotten about that simple conversation in the hallway just a few years before. Put out of my mind until it came rushing back as I flip them over and see my name in her handwriting.

"She must have wanted you to have these," my aunt Mary explains. "Your name was on them. She labeled a lot of things for everyone."  

I smile. These little paper and metal reproductions are the most priceless thing I own.

My aunt Mary is gone now too. She gave the best hugs. She had the biggest laugh. I miss her too. And my aunt Viv is gone now too. Grandma Vivian's namesake. She had a great laugh too. Floating in a Minnesota lake with all my aunties is one of my fondest memories of all. A memory that brings a smile to my face and a floating feeling in my soul. We're all built like bobbers, so we can float for hours. Who doesn't love a good endless summertime float?

Exhibit C:
My parents have already pre-paid their cremation plans because they are also practical Midwesterners who make sure their obligations are taken care of. They already have their little boxes for their ashes in the closet. My mom bought some stickers with gold foil like the kind you'd have on a mailbox with their initials on each of their boxes. I appreciate the forethought and the craft. 

Exhibit D:
When our geriatric cat started getting creakier this year we saved a shoebox for him in our closet. Turns out a men's size 13 will fit a 10-pound domestic shorthair quite nicely. We were sad to see him go this fall, but glad he went before the ground froze. We took our little cardboard box proclaiming MEMORY FOAM to my parents' place. It's where all the pets get to go rest. My dad pre-dug the hole for us since we were driving up after work. It was past day-light savings because by the time we got there it was well beyond dark. I held the flashlight while Gabe tucked in our buddy for his long nap. It started snowing while we said our final adieus to our sweet black and white boy. It's like we live in a goddamn Willa Cather novel sometimes.

In Conclusion...
I come by it honestly, this detached objectivity about the inevitability of death. Like I said, I am not looking forward to it, but I just like to be prepared.

And so don't be surprised that I have already started telling friends, "Do you like this? You can have it once I die." Who else is going to want my stuffed unicorn head? I also have a stuffed dragon head. And a stuffed squirrel. I don't know if it matters but the squirrel is flipping the bird. There could be a fight over it, so speak up early for the good things. If you put your claim in now, I can put your name on any of it. Otherwise, there will be a hell of an estate sale. One of my bucket list items actually...

• HAVE A DELIGHTFULLY CONFUSING ESTATE SALE

I am going to need a label maker. If you want that...I can put your name on it...

2021 in many ways felt like it didn't even happen. Another whole calendar dropped off and it feels like it's still 2020, but it's already 2022 and I don't know how that happened. Another one slipped away, and I am grateful that I made it to this new calendar flip. Not everyone does.

Even Betty White. 

Betty and her husband Allen

I have such a fondness for this woman who I have never met and yet feel like I knew her. Which is silly. She'll always be my favorite Golden Girl. The sweet Rose from Saint Olaf Minnesota. Of course, none of that was real, but still her charm was that you felt like you did know her. What a joy and a treat she was. Betty was once asked after the passing of her husband if she'd ever re-marry and she said, "Once you've had the best, who needs the rest?" Later she was asked what would she like God to say to her when she walked through the pearly gates, and White replied: "Hello Betty. Here's Allen."

We lost some tremendous people this year. Some of them you'll never have the pleasure of knowing, and that's a shame. 

For example, we lost my uncle Harold a few weeks ago. His mom was Vivian. He was my dad's older brother, and the oldest boy in the family to be specific. I really hoped he'd get another Christmas with his family, but it did not work out that way. One afternoon my dad got a call that there wasn't much time left. He planned to make the drive up in the morning, since the sun was already threatening to set and his eyes aren't what they used to be. I appreciate his caution, but it meant that unfortunately his brother had already gone before the sun rose. I was working and so I also didn't get to say goodbye. I have regret, but instead of focusing on that, I think about the fond memories of him instead. 

As a kid I got to go to the walleye opener with all the uncles and cousins. We'd pile into boats an adult or two and a handful of kids and it was always freezing because some years ice out had just been a couple weeks before. I remember going with my dad and eating Twizzlers in the truck on the drive up to Uncle Frank's place. 

Sometimes I'd go in the boat with my cousin David. Harold's son. He was an older cousin who knew all the lines to Monty Python and was super sarcastic and listened to heavy metal so of course I thought he was pretty cool. He's gone now too, and I miss his dry sarcasm and sly grin at family functions very much.

We'd go out at the crack of dawn, and whether you caught your limit or not you always met back up at Uncle Frank's to share in the spoils of Walleye and eat lunch and share stories about the conditions of the local lakes and their topography, which baits and techniques had produced the best results, and if anyone was going out in the afternoon to try somewhere else; new battle plans were drawn. I am pretty sure I never caught anything other than weeds, but I was never a very dedicated fisherwoman. I was mostly there for the Twizzlers and pop.

Uncle Mike always made the fish camp cozy. He fried up the catch, some years were more plentiful than others, and there were always beans and the best fried potatoes you've ever had. Uncle Mike had the deepest voice of all my uncles, and a big red bristly moustache. I miss that deep rumbly voice and smile, and sometimes I swear I can still smell those fried potatoes with onions he made.

Anyway, this year we said goodbye to a pretty great uncle, father, grandfather, husband, and brother. He was another warm voice and big smile I enjoyed spending time with very much. In his later years he used to grow these really delicious potatoes in his garden, and I was lucky enough to eat some.

Mmm. Taters.

When I dream of my Uncle Harold this is how he'll always look.
I don't know for certain what happens when we die, but I do hope for him the Walleyes are biting.

If you've lost anyone this year, I can't imagine how difficult that is, but I do know enough about grief to know that it's challenging. We're all doing our best.

I don't want to start my new reflection on the year by talking just on what we've lost but also on what we gained. I have plenty to be thankful for yet again this year. I found myself laughing more days than I cried, and on the days I did both it was truly a reminder that it's a gift to be able to experience the gamut of human emotion, so on the whole I'll just simply say...can't complain.

In other news, Gabe got a new job. It's in his same field but aligned with a cause he is truly passionate about, (ecological restoration) and I am so excited for him, but it will be a big change. Back in an office, back to commuting for a while. I love my big ape husband, but he loves change about as much as he loves picking up fossilized animal turds, which is to say, not so much. I know this change will be tough for him, but I am still so excited for him none the less. He will rock it because he always does. 

The other thing that's fun about this time of year is that it's a chance to start something new. Plant seeds of hope for the future. Sometimes LITERALLY!

This spring we'll start planting our meadow. We've been visiting the arboretum and Gabe has been pouring over the internet studying about native plants. We've assembled our list of native plants like we're curating a mixtape of all the native flowers greatest hits, and we decided this year to take the plunge and make our own meadow in our back yard. This fall we killed the pointless turf grass, and it will slowly turn to dirt over the winter. Sometimes death is a good thing. It makes way for something new and better. The roots of the turf breaking down into dust in this frozen time. This spring the turf will still be dead, but things will have inevitably blown into the future meadow zone or have pushed their way past the turf, so we'll have to spray again to kill the "winter weeds". Then a few weeks later, probably around Mother's Day, which is usually the fishing opener for those not in the know, we'll be able to sow our meadow seeds. 

I CAN'T WAIT FOR ALL THE CRITTERS AND BUGS THAT ARE GOING TO BE IN MY MEADOW!

She won't be much to look at her first two years, but eventually we hope to have a little pocket meadow sanctuary and you're all always welcome to come stop in and see her progress because it's good to have things to look forward to. Like Spring, and the fishing opener, and seeing the people we love again.

Happy New Year. You've made it. Well done you!