Matilda, my mom's mom, has always insisted on being called Grandmother. When we all got older and started calling her "Gram," she would ignore us until we finally gave up and called her Grandmother. She's gotten better about this over the years, but I'm pretty sure it's only because she can't hear us as well.
My grandmother and grandad met when they were teenagers attending school in a one-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania... they've been together ever since. I find that incredibly romantic. Even more romantic is how she still talks about how great my grandad is - how he used to ride his bike up a giant hill to visit her; how they used to go out for ice cream sundaes; how he got along with all of her siblings and how they spent hours playing cards. She's 87 years old and she's still smitten with her high school sweetheart.
My grandparents (on the left) on their wedding day with my grandmother's twin sister and her husband. My grandmother taught us all how to behave properly. We learned how to set a proper place setting, which utensils to use and when, how to twirl our spaghetti on a spoon so the bites were manageable and non-slurpy. She helped teach us manners and how to treat people with respect. She taught us how to cook and how to shop (seriously, she could shop). She always took so much pride in her appearance, which hasn't necessarily rubbed off on me but I blame society for that one.
We all have amazing women in our lives, we had to learn it from somewhere. Mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, cousins, neighbors - someone out there influenced you to such an extent that you carry them with you where ever you go. All of these things that I learned from my own Grandmother are things I will be able to teach my daughters someday and that is amazing to me.
2 comments:
I love those stories, Lin. I'm always a little jealous of people's grandparent stories, because while I dearly love all of mine, I never had much of a relationship with any of them while I was growing up. My mom's parents lived in Israel and didn't really speak English, and we moved away from my dad's mom when I was 9. I'd never gotten to spend much time with her, anyway, because I had too many other cousins always around. :) Grandparents can be such a wonderful fixture in a person's life.
Aunt Mathilda was always a little scary to me, precisely because of the need to really follow the rules. She always has expected the best from everyone and she really helps them achieve it from her expectation. It makes me sad that I don't really get to see her anymore, because I had some great times with her and your family when I was younger. Tell her I said hello!
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