Oct. 2nd

... is my grandmother's birthday. Though she died in January of '04, I tend to think of her more this time of year more than in January. Not a conscious thing, just a habit, I guess. She lived with us, and though I know it took a toll on my parents, in hindsight, I'm pretty glad enormously appreciative that I got the opportunity to have a third parent in the house as I grew up. I'm even glad that I got to experience her decline into old age. I've got a decent handle on what to expect now, and it's not the scary unknown. (Instead, it's the scary known.)

She was a good Christian woman who never drank or smoked. I never heard her curse - didn't even drop a "damn" or "crap". When I was a kid, she got a Casio keyboard just so she could play songs from the Lutheran hymnal in her free time. The scene seems like a sitcom caricature now, as I remember the sounds of "Holy, Holy, Holy" coming out of a tinny-sounding 80s music machine. There was always a constant flow of cooking, baking, or Americana folk art crafting going on. She taught me how to crochet, knit, and do needlepoint - and of course, now that I actually wouldn't mind doing these things, (quite unlike when I was a kid) time has erased all of these skills. One time while she was making cinnamon rolls from scratch, I decided to mirror what she did, but instead I wanted mine to be teeny and child-sized. At dinnertime, we sat them side by side on the platter, big and little cinnamon rolls.

Of course, by the time I became a disillusioned teenager, all appreciation for these little lessons had been washed away by apathy and hormones. Thankfully, I got it back several years ago.

I called her Mamo (pronounced "Mamaw") and learned lots of stuff from things she did, and didn't do. Here's a fun list of them:

1. Use the word "penis" sparingly, perhaps once every ten years. That way when you say it, the amount of shock value and hilarity increases exponentially.

2. If you catch a boy in your granddaughter's room when her parents are still at work, be firm but cool about it. Then, freak her out by talking to her about sex. Be sure to do it in the most deadpan way possible, and be sure to use lots of old-fashioned terms like "heavy petting" to really get her attention.

3. You can be a good Christian woman and believe that aliens exist.

4. Be nice to kids. One day they'll be responsible for changing your adult diapers and funding your social security benefits.

5. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

6. Crocheted bikinis might seem like a good idea, but in reality, they are anything but practical. (I think I soaked up half the water in the pool after jumping in.) Hindsight.

I think Mom may have burned the fabled crocheted bikini. As an alternative, here's one of the many homemade outfits I was forced to endure loved as a child. That's not an entirely accurate statement, actually. For this picture, I was too young to care where my clothes came from. By the time I was 8 or 9 however, I'd become way more fashionably intuitive. THAT's when I started to care.

7. Be a nice person, but don't forget to stand up for yourself.

8. Raising good humans is a vastly under-appreciated art.
8b. Good childcare and being mean/strict are NOT the same thing.

9. Tell grandkids stories about when their parent(s) were kids and made mistakes.

10. Do what you know is right, even if others scoff.

When she died, Mom and I were going through old photos to make a collage. In virtually every one, she's got her eyes closed. Aren't the cat-eye glasses great? To demonstrate what a nice lady she was, she's smiling despite the fact I'm apparently about to strangle her. (Sorry about that, Mamo. And PS-I miss you.)