My grandma's hands

When I was born my maternal grandmother and both my paternal grandparents were still alive. My Grandpa Thompson died when I was seven, and I honestly don't remember any meaningful interaction with him. I don't remember ever sitting on his knee; I don't remember even any conversations we ever had. I'm sure we must have, our regular Sunday drive destination with Dad was his parents' house. I remember the way he looked, but mostly I remember running downstairs to explore their basement while the grown ups stayed upstairs to talk.

I remember a lot more of my Grandma Thompson. She lived the longest of all my grandparents, and we continued driving to visit her on Sundays (or she'd come to us, for dinner) for years and years. My dad is her eldest son and the only one of her kids who lived in the state, so we saw her a lot. She ate very slowly—we'd sometimes linger at the table for up to 30 minutes after we were all finished eating dinner, while she ate and talked. And she loved the attention that being sick got her. As my own father said, "She'd rather go to the hospital than out to dinner." She was the landing place for all my out-of-state cousins, so I spent many a happy day there at her house playing and chasing, running up and down the sidewalk and out in the back yard. My dad's youngest sister Aunt Kathy lived on the east coast the whole time I was growing up, and so she'd come for a month at a time in the summer to visit. And I'd spend days and night at grandma's playing with my east coast cousin Leslie, having the grandest time. Grandma Thompson had trees that every year bore the most delicious bing cherries, bushels and bushels of them. "Don't eat too many, you'll get diarrhea," my mom always warned. I ate all I could hold and did fine digestively. ;) Grandma always gave me one dollar for every birthday and every Christmas, clear up until I got married. After I married birthdays were just a card, and Christmas was some dishtowels. She died while I was on vacation in the Pacific Northwest, the day after I found out I was pregnant with Ethan. I missed her funeral.

I know it is bad form for a parent to admit to a favorite child, and I'm sure the same applies to grandparents with their grandchildren. But I have no problem with reverse favoritism. My mom's mom, Grandma Harrison, was hands down my favorite grandparent. She died when I was 18, and I miss her. On my wedding day, on the days my babies were born, I wish she was there to be a part of it, to be a part of my children's lives. Every Christmas when I pull out the decorations I still look at and hold the little hand-sewn stockings and wrappings she made for my Christmas presents.

For many years when I was really small, Grandma Harrison lived right next-door to us. I could see her garden through the backyard fence, and I only had to walk up a small alley to get to her house. I spent so much time there with her! She was my mom's #1 babysitter for me. Whenever one of my older sisters had a baby and mom was gone for a few days, I went to grandma's. How much easier could it be? I still walked to and from school, I could even still play with all my neighborhood friends. When Mom and Dad went to Peru to pick up my brother Mike at the end of his LDS mission, I stayed with grandma. Whenever she was baking bread I was right nearby so I could have a slice while it was still hot, and whenever I asked her she made my two favorite foods for me. My mouth still waters for creamed tuna.

Grandma Harrison was old already by the time I was born. She was born on 30 or 31 October 1894-6 (one of those three years, he parents didn't keep a good record) so by the time I was old enough to know her she was already >75 years old. She lived to be >90. She was never spry. She wasn't the sort who'd sit on the floor with me and play dolls, or who even walked outside with me to watch me ride my bike. We mostly played quiet games of checkers or paper dolls, or read quietly side by side, or she puttered around while I played in her toy room. We watched Lawrence Welk, and she never missed As The World Turns. We hung her nylon stockings to dry, and I colored pictures. She put my just-washed hair up into pin curls. We tied quilts. But I knew she loved me. I think that's what made all the difference. She wasn't a playmate, but she loved me—loved me as much as my mother did.

She later moved to an apartment in The Belvedere downtown, and that was pretty exciting too. My mom would drop me off to stay with her for a couple of nights, and the two of us would toddle next door to Hansen Planetarium to look at all the displays (though she didn't really like the star shows) or right across the street to the ZCMI Center mall, where we'd get lunch in a sit-down restaurant and then browse the old lady stores. Then we'd go back to her apartment for As The World Turns and reruns of Lawrence Welk and I'd look at her silver plated hairbrush and drink white tea (which was just milk, sugar, and hot water) out of her china cups. She'd sometimes send a little something home with me from one of her shelves—I have a beautiful antique glass apothecary jar filled with rose petals from a dozen roses her husband gave her. She disbursed all her meaningful possessions years before she died, right into the hands of her loved ones.

Later yet she moved to a little house one of my mom's sisters owned. I was a teen by then, and would still stay with her for a night or two, and she'd always make me white tea and creamed tuna (usually both nights). I always tried her sugar-free diabetic cookies or candy and wish she had real ones. And we'd play checkers or watch TV or read, and I knew she loved me. She let me have two of her china cups that I always drank white tea out of.

Grandma Harrison had beautiful white, curly hair. I suspect she even cut it in her own bathroom sometimes, and yet she never had to do anything more than wet it to look like she'd just had it done professionally. And I loved her hands. I thought they were so beautiful. Her nails were always long and usually painted, and he hands were just so delicate. She crocheted, she knitted, she sewed, everything without a pattern and very lopsided. I have a hand-sewed asymmetrical cloth doll she made me, wearing a dress of the same fabric as Grandma's muu muu. (The doll's name is Big Mukahamas. One day my sister Joan and I were playing indians with our cloth dolls, and the name stuck.) I just loved looking at her hands. The knuckles were knobbly from arthritis and the veins were prominent through the paper-thin skin, but I thought she should be a hand model.

I was thinking of her hands last night while I painted my nails. Sometimes I still dream of her, dream that she just walks into the room looking a little younger and healthier than when I knew her and we catch up where we left off. I bring in my children and she already knows them all, and she loves them as much as I do. I almost always wake up crying, because I do miss her. And I miss holding her hands.