Grandmom

My grandmom, was born Ethel Leah Boyce, February 17th, 1907, to a very big family in West Virginia. She had 11 brothers and sisters, and she had a twinkle in her eye revealing the mischeif that they all must have got into, proved not only by that spark, but on the occasions they would reunite, especially with her sisters. They wouldn’t appear as grandmoms or moms any more, but as silly girls, giggling and having their usual spats.

Grandmom buried 3 husbands and one son before her life ended from a long run with heart trouble. What remains is a wonderful memory of a woman with a lot of strength, a smile that could light up a room, and a strong sense of history, family, and right and wrong.

Grandmom wasn’t extremely affectionate as grandmas go, but she was very well liked everywhere she went. She left West Virginia and raised two boys in Baltimore, Raymond & my dad, Julian. They lived in a very big, old and roomy house with three floors, a sun parlor, a cherry tree in the backyard, a wrap around porch with a swing, a fishpond and along two columns between the dining room and the living room, she consistantly had a well stocked candy dish. As long as I can remember, grandmom worked at a neighborhood corner grocery store. There, she got to know everyone, and everyone got to know her. They loved her. Every Christmas, people would shower her with presents. I think she might be the only grandmom that at Christmastime had more presents than the kids gathered there. I will never forget the day grandmom was held up at gunpoint at the grocery store. It was very traumatic to think of your grandmom facing a gun, but, she just took it as all in a day’s work. Even when the story made the newspaper, she seemed to take it in stride. (After she passed away, we found out that good ol’ Grandmom had a pistol or two packed away in her dresser drawer in her bedroom.) To help make ends meet, grandmom rented the two floors above her, so, in essense, her home was always full of colorful people and lively.

I was not around to know grandmom’s second husband. But apparently he was a real character, who thought nothing about dancing around with children in public and having all kinds of fun. I can imagine Grandmom with her mouth scolding and with her eyes admiring him with her grandchildren. Her husband died, and Grandmom married George Dix. George also had heart trouble and so it began, that I became very familiar with hospitals. After he died, and Grandmom seemed to take ill a lot with heart trouble, going to see grandmom at the hospital was almost a way of life. When you grow up with it, you don’t think of it any different. But it taught me something, grandmom taught me something in those visits. This little life isn’t forever, and to APPRECIATE each and every moment the Lord God gives us. I learned you can be up and around one minute a in the hospital with tubes everywhere the next. Live. Live and love and appreciate while you can. Perhaps parents who hide hospitals and unpleasant things do not do their children any favors, I think I learned a lot about life, slowly watching grandmom slow down and eventually pass away…

One thing I remember about grandmom’s heart attacks. She would usually know a little in advance they were coming. She was way too considerate though with them. She’d call our house and say, “One is a coming, I am having a heart attack”.” My dad would then encourage her to quickly phone the ambulance. She’d say, “Oh its way too early yet, you know how they always send at least two fire trucks with an ambulance, and I don’t want to wake the neighbors yet.”

After every episode on a hospital visit, Grandmom would soon look herself again, paint her long long fingernails deep red, (her favorite color) and soon have us over, all of us, a houseful, and put us all to work.

Sometimes Grandmom wasn’t someone to love. Grandmom was something you just DID. She was good at assembling all of us, getting us to get chores done. Sundays, well, you just went to grandmom’s after church. It’s just what you DID. It was usually walking into her big house and opening the door and first thing you would encounter was the fresh aroma of homemade bread and rolls cooking. You just knew it was going to be a good day and a good dinner. Since not going to grandmom’s wasn’t an option, as I got older, she would let me bring friends with me. But she’d soon have them up the cherry tree picking cherries, or handing them a rake to rake the leaves in the yard. Everyone was well rewarded, handing them a great big tub of cherries to take home, or with the bounty at her table, or the generous table of desserts she would prepare in advance, or often ice cream sundaes.

When Grandmom lost Uncle Ray, her first son, I thought surely nothing could be worse than to have a child die before you. And Grandmom sure grieved. But, in her usual style, and with a set mind to live and carry on as long as her body would let her. She seemed to think a lot more on spiritual things after Uncle Ray died. She became interested in the Bible and insisted we take her to a Billy Graham Crusade. Grandmom’s house was very close to Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium, and she knew that Billy Graham was going to be there. I knew climbing up to her seat would be very hard, along with the heat of the summer evening, so I tried to discourage her, telling her the Lord knew her heart. She won that argument however, and we found ourselves helping this aging, dear old lady up many steps to her seat at the Stadium. I don’t think she was well enough to go, but my grandmom, a little woman who was an amazing tower of stregnth and was determined to be there. The end of that evening, I think Grandmom was OK, but the rest of us were faint with worry! ( I did see her pop a nitroglycerin pill or two though).

Grandmom’s heart finally did wear down to the point where she needed more frequent visits to help her out, and hospital visits became more frequent too, recoveries soon were done at our house, so she would be taken care of. It was kind of nice in a way, because at that time my son Enric was born, and she got to see lots of him, and she would look at him so deeply, watching him with wonder, as he was indeed a dear little boy.

When she did get to go back home, which she loved, she felt at one with her house, I think she would often sense “This could be the last time I come back.” The last time she was right, she went to the hospital, but had to go back to my parents house where my mom took very good care of her, till she finally ended up back into the hospital to meet her end. Her vital organs were giving out. The whole family assembled often to her room, we took turns. I always got the feeling she enjoyed my visits there. I was already a pro at ignoring the tubes, the beeps of the machines, the smell of the hospital, and could just TALK to her. And she could talk to me. She knew this visit was the last one. “I will never see my home again.” I held her hand and squeezed it. I accepted her acceptance of it, and knew it was painful for her.

She sure lived a life though, while she lived.
I hope I can too, and gleen some of her strength and character.