Honoring our grandmas

My son-in-law's mother passed away yesterday, the day before her husband's birthday. They shared almost sixty years together. The family was called to the hospital to remove her from life support. Her adult granddaughters painted her fingernails bright red, her favorite color. It reminded me of the day my grandma died and what I did for her.

Grandma's Curls (published Flashquake, 2006)

Pappy and I rode the street car every Friday evening during my first three years. My weekend visits perked Grandma up better than her prescribed nerve medication. She filled my belly with food and my heart with love. As I got older, she fed me rutabagas and rye bread, and thick skinned chocolate pudding for dessert. Slabs of toasted coconut bread waited for me after school, a gesture of her love.

She raised her voice and all five feet of herself up when my high school diploma was presented, and wept harder at my wedding than she did when her second husband died. I became her confidante when, in her golden years, she fell in love with an eighty-year-old two-timer.

She lured me with food; we sat at her table, giggled like school girls and nourished each other.

"Have some soup. I think he's seeing a redhead. Do you think I should dye my hair red? He stopped in to see me last night." Her goo-goo eyes made me laugh.

One day she called and asked me to bring my portable typewriter. "I have something very important I want you to type. It's a secret and I want you to write exactly what I say."

I imagined a love letter and formatted it in my mind. She greeted me and touched my new curly permed hair. "I love your new hairdo. Could you curl my hair like that? I think Joe would like it."

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease had her in a death grip and I explained that the perm fumes would be harmful.

I opened my typewriter. "How should I begin, My Dearest or My Darling?"


I wrote the greatest love letter of all time that evening, and it was not to her gentleman friend.

"My Daughters and Son," she dictated her last will and testament, bequeathed her meager possessions to her six grown children and professed her love.

"You are the only one I can trust to do this," she said softly. "This is our secret."

The next day she was rushed to the hospital. Her failing health led to a lengthy hospitalization. Each time I visited, she asked, "When can you give me curls?"

"Soon," I'd say, but her illness progressively worsened. The hospital summoned. I was the first family member to arrive, but it was too late.

"Expired," the nurse said as she led me into Grandma's room.

"Dead," I thought, because Gram and I never minced words.

I sat beside her, wept, then wiped my eyes, stood up and walked to her night stand. By the time I was finished telling my grandmother how special she had always made me feel, every strand of her hair was wrapped in pink sponge rollers. "Grandma, there's a halo waiting for these pretty curls." I smiled, turned and walked out of her room.

AHHH! A naked man!

Ladies, do you remember the first time you saw a naked man? In person, not in a National Geographic or Play Girl magazine.

I was a child, and no, this is not one of those horrific child abuse stories. It is not about the sexual exploitation of children. I was never molested, yet the incident is as fresh in my mind as a small, hard brick of Bazooka chewing gum softening in my mouth at the age of eight.

My parents had taken us swimming in St. Charles, first time at a pool. My mom took me through the girls' changing room and my dad and brother went into the boy's changing room. I was amazed that we both exited out of those rooms and into the pool area simultaneously. We enjoyed clinging to the pool edge and wading. My dad supported my belly and tried to teach me how to swim. It was so exciting to be in over my head, yet so comforting to know my dad was there to hold me up when my toes could no longer touch bottom.

Dad, who had a tan, got out of the pool to take my brother to the bathroom and told me to wait in the wading pool. Mom must have gone in to change. I felt afraid and so I darted into the changing area. Oh my gosh! I had wandered into the boy's changing room. That MAN may have been a teenager, or he may have been a middle-aged man. I do not recall seeing his genitals. What I vividly recall is that guy's entire nude body was as pink as a wad of Bazooka chewing gum.

I was ushered out of there in a hurry. My parents talked in code on the way home about what they thought I had seen and wondered aloud if I had been traumatized by the exposure. Oh I was traumatized alright. From that day forward, I could not chomp on a chunk of Bazooka chewing gum, even though I did like the little waxed cartoon paper it was wrapped in. Thereafter, I chose Double Bubble gum wrapped in a twist of waxed paper instead.

My Blues

There are three shades of blue that excite me.

1.Turquoise, whether it is on a winter sweater or a piece of stationery, transports me to the ocean. The sight of aqua marine in winter makes my heart race in anticipation of my summer beach vacation. I work all year, landlocked in the Midwest in order to be able to hit the road again and head South to spend a precious few days with my husband toeing hearts in the sand, walking hand in hand. We are getting older and the beach calls to us like the gulls overhead. It is my greatest pleasure to frolic barefoot in the surf.

2. God's gift, a newborn wrapped in a baby-blue blanket, or snuggled in his infant seat can stop me in my tracks, no matter how busy my day. A smile creeps across my face and I am reminded of my own son who was a pleasant baby; he grew into an active little wild child, a young man with a need for speed, a decent teenager and a hard working adult. Now he's a husband and father who attempts to slow his own offspring down. Kids grow up too quickly these days. Some days no matter how he tries, there is just no stopping them.

3. When the sun is high and the sky is azure, I am energized. A cloudless sky excites me. It can be blistering hot, or freezing cold, but if the sun is shining I feel as if fairy dust has been sprinkled on my psyche. I am up for anything. Toss me a problem, I'll find a solution. I smile until my facial muscles ache. I ride a wave of euphoria.

But when winter dulls the sky and land, my spirit shrivels and wilts like the last rose of summer. That familiar lack of energy overtakes me regardless of how much chocolate I sneak. I want to crawl under the covers and hibernate like an old bear.

I actually do. But, on New Year's day I begin my countdown to spring. It makes me feel somewhat in control to say, "Only sixteen more weeks before I whip both plush, blue blankets off the bed, not just for the weekly laundering, but for the last time."

All winter those two, fluffy blankets cocoon me, hold in my body heat, regulate my mood when I crawl in between them. On the day that I am able to replace them with light weight, brushed cotton sheets as pale blue as a baby blanket, as turquoise as the ocean, or as bright as the sky, my mood soars and the blues of winter disappear out the open window. I love-love-love a spring breeze.

This afternoon, it was 65 degrees. I sat outside in the sunshine and read a book. I considered stripping the blankets off the bed, and then I came inside and heard the weather forecast. Winter winds will be gusting, and a few hundred miles north, they are expecting eight inches of snow. I guess I'll wait a few weeks. I am not complaining. We have had a mild winter.

Non-verbal communication

Generally speaking, females talk more than males. We lecture our children and over explain our positions. It isn't easy being a kid and it isn't easy being the adult in charge of a a kid.

Some kids who are on the autism spectrum do not have a grasp of non-verbal communication. If an adult puts a finger to the lips, most children understand that communicates, Shhh, be quiet. But not everyone gets it.

I try to use non-verbal as much as possible in the classroom. I gesture, raise an eyebrow or use few words. I have a new boy with limited English and an abundance of energy. As he learns the rules of the different classrooms he visits, I hear others trying to 'deal' with him. Over talking is confusing in our own language. Kids process the last three to four words of a sentence. So if you say, "It is not nice to throw blocks at Johnny." The child processes, THROW BLOCKS AT JOHNNY.

When he is in my classroom, I call this child's name and then use a hand gesture, for stop, or no, etc. It works in most cases.


Let me share an incident that happened with my cousin when she was a young teen. She was crossing a street and a police officer in his car was at the stop sign. He motioned to her with his finger. She said her heart started pounding. He motioned again. She walked over to the passenger door and opened the car and got in.

"What are you doing?"

"You just motioned for me to get in, didn't you?"

"No, I was motioning you to cross the street."

BE CAREFUL, don't get your signals crossed. By no means am I implying that my cousin is on the spectrum; she was a young girl who misinterpreted.

Be concise in writing. Readers who have to process all the way down a meandering path, no matter how pretty, may skip instead of stroll. They may not even make it to the end.

I'm clucking!

Oh yeah! If my back wasn't hurting so bad, I'd be up doing the victory dance. I received my final round acceptance from Chicken Soup for the Soul books on my story for the Married Life book. It is a story so dear to my heart about how Bill and I met. It is about how his pantry, like his life seemed perfect, mine and my life were haphazard. I wrote how I like to wing it and he has to plan every detail. It also includes a humorous incident involving a vacation.

I had titled it Committed, No Matter How it Stacks Up. The only edit they made was the title, they changed it to, The Odd Couple, which is probably more appropriate. The big guy said, "Well they should retitle it to, The Odd ONE!"

They are growing up!

My grandson, Austin, celebrated his fifteenth birthday today. He has abs of steel, but won't let me see them.

"No, you're my grandma, that's weird."

He works out and exercises several times a week. He has sports memorabilia and posters of ball players (and also a Sports Illustrated model) all over his walls, a large TV in his room, and a recliner which he bought with his birthday money a couple years ago. Fifteen and his own man cave! He's a good kid with a lot of ambition, and I am very proud of him. He invited his uncle and cousin outside to toss a football. He spied me and pretended to toss it to me.

"Go ahead! You don't know who you're messing with here, boy! Last time I was here I proved I could slug a baseball. I can hit, and I can catch. I just can't throw."

"Yeah, right!"

"Toss it!"

"Wow!" he and Nick both yelled, as I caught that spinning pigskin.

I tossed it back and narrowly missed a Mustang, car.


I have never taken a cake decorating class. When my kids were small I used to make them stand with me at the grocery store bakery department so I could observe the bakery ladies decorating cakes.

Years ago, I bought a few tips and decorating bags, a large pan and obtained a frosting recipe. Shhh! Don't tell the Cardinals I used their logo. The bird's head feathers are a bit too froo-froo, and his legs are out of place, but close enough and not too bad for free-hand drawing.

Handiwork for you and for them

Keeping little hands busy doesn't require battery operated games or electronic gadgets. It requires a bit of creativity and ingenuity. I love making something new out of something old. Hubby says I am the only person he knows who will destroy one perfectly good thing to make another thing. Yeah? So?

Did you know that twisting, turning, squishing, smooshing, squeezing and wringing develops and strengthens small finger muscles that children use when printing?
I have a collection of about twenty different sizes and shapes of jars and bottles in which I stuff an object, then screw on the lids. The children unscrew the lids using wrist action. They like to see what is inside each. After all of the lids are off, I put them in a pile and the children have to match them and screw them back on. It requires reasoning. Sometimes I put a corresponding sticker on a lid, for example, if I have two Ponds Cold Cream jars, and one has a dinosaur inside, I would glue a dino sticker on the lid of one.

You would be surprised at how much fun the simple things can be for little children.
Hubby cut these hands out of a piece of scrap wood. One side is brown and the other lighter (multi-cultural). The kids love placing corresponding amounts of rings (from the Dollar store) on the fingers. My original "hand" game was made out of strong cardboard, so don't think you need a carpenter!