Chicken Soup for the Grandma's Soul (8 page)

I didn't like that kind of talk.

“I make my own plans,” I told Momma. “And my plans have me staying with you.”

“That's what I want too, baby,” she said. “And don't you ever forget that if anything bad happens, I'll always be with you, no matter where you go.”

“And we'll have ‘deposition stew,'” I laughed, remembering the wonderful smell of her chicken and gravy filling our old apartment.

“Deposition stew and homemade bread,” she told me, giving me a hug so tight I could hardly breathe.

Then she died.

“Cold as ice” is what the paramedic said when they loaded her in the ambulance. I never saw her again. By the time anyone thought about me, I was long gone.

I wandered from shelter to shelter for a day or two, attaching myself to a crowd so no one would notice I was alone. I got by okay until I went into the place where the fat lady worked.

“Where's your momma?” she asked.

“She's not here tonight.”

“I can see that. Where is she?”

“Can I please have some of that soup?” I asked, trying hard to remember to be respectful.

She poured a bowl, putting a big hunk of bread next to it before sitting me down for a long talk. “Now where is your momma? I know she wouldn't want you in here all alone.”

“She's right here with me,” I spit back at her. “Right by my side forever, just like she promised!”

“Is she now?” the lady asked, understanding and softening her demeanor. She had heard Momma's cough and knew she wasn't doing well. “Who will look after you now?”

“I'm not sure,” I told her. “I haven't got it all figured out yet.”

“Maybe I can help,” she whispered. “You sit here and eat your soup, and I'll see what I can do.”

A short time later, another lady, not quite as fat but otherwise looking a lot like her, came walking into the shelter offering to take me home. Seems she took in foster kids and just happened to have space for one more.

It took me a while to sort it all out, but the fat lady is momma to the one that I call Mom these days. I can't say Momma to her . . . that name belongs to my real momma, but she's okay with that.

“Call me whatever you like,” she said, “just don't call me late for dinner.”

That's funny, the way she puts it.

Tomorrow the fat lady is coming for dinner along with the rest of the family. Now I have a foster sister, two foster brothers and some cousins coming in from out of town. All that and a nice fat lady for a grandma. I'm pretty sure Momma will be watching, and she'll laugh along with us when my new mom and I cook up some deposition stew for everyone.

“Here Grandma, taste this,” I'll say.

Bobbi Carducci

Thanks

L
etters are those winged messengers that can fly
from east to west on embassies of love.

Jeremiah Brown Howell

Few things thrill this man more than the sight of my grandmother's handwriting on an envelope. I always save that piece of mail for last, saving it for when I am free to pay it the attention it deserves.

I start with the many enclosures. My grandmother reads at least three newspapers and clips the articles she thinks may be of interest to family members. She prints the newspaper's name and the date the article appeared before folding the clipping so the headline is visible on top.

Today's batch includes a story about another adoptive parent, an announcement about a book signing and tips on defeating kidney stones. I read the clips slowly, knowing that she thought them important enough to send, and her judgment was right on the mark.

Then I finally open my grandmother's card. She buys discounted cards for their pictures and not the printed text, which in this case congratulates me on a new job. The words that matter are the ones she writes herself.

My grandmother starts where most people merely sign their name. She completely fills that page with her neat script, moves over to the facing page, and then finishes her note as the space runs out on the back of the card.

She is thanking me for hosting a birthday party. She doesn't simply say “Thanks,” which would still be more than I received from others. My grandmother describes every detail she appreciated, mentions the news she heard and repeats the jokes that made her laugh. She recalls past parties I've thrown and dwells on the highlights.

Those who say that letter writing is a lost art never received mail from my grandmother, who has once again brightened my day and lessened my load.

Stephen D. Rogers

Aunt Tooty

W
here there is room in the heart, there is
always room in the house.

Thomas Moore

Her American name was Aunt Tilly; I don't know its Hebrew derivation, but to me she was always Aunt Tooty. She was the beloved substitute for my own grandmother, her sister Ida, who died before I was born.

Aunt Tooty was one of three sisters who immigrated to the United States just before the Russian revolution took place. Along with Ida and Tilly came Paulie; they were said (by their own account) to be the most beautiful, talented and sought-after girls in their shtetl. I believe it. The way they sewed and danced and laughed together, who wouldn't want to marry them? Besides, what other girls had the courage to secretly board a train and run away in search of a better life, as the three of them had when they were teenagers? For three weeks, until they were returned home, their mother thought they were dead. The three sisters were regal, imposing women. Tall and erect, their hair was swept up on their heads just like the empress's. They were formidable ladies who knew how to make themselves heard, noticed and respected.

But it was Aunt Tooty to whom I was truly drawn when I wanted a grandmother's love. It was to Aunt Tooty's house on Richmond Street in Philadelphia that I always wanted to go. It was Aunt Tooty's large hands and long fingers I wanted to feel caress me whenever I felt sad or scared.

Her house was really an apartment behind my uncle's appliance store. I loved the sitting room, with its bric-abrac, teacups on doilies, silver inkwell on the writing table and sepia photographs, including one of my mother as a child with a gigantic bow in her black hair. I loved the smell of chicken soup simmering in a pot in the kitchen and the sound of Aunt Tooty pounding pastry on the wooden breadboard. I loved hearing her humming Yiddish songs as she danced around the room with me standing on top of her lace-up shoes. But most of all I loved the armoire drawer I slept in when I stayed at Richmond Street. It was the bottom drawer of a huge piece of furniture from “the old country” that pulled out to create a perfect sleeping nest for a three-and-a-half-year-old. Lined with a deliciously soft eiderdown and fluffy pillows such as you only find in Europe, that tiny space made me feel absolutely safe and loved. In the evening when I grew sleepy, Aunt Tooty tucked me in to my special bed chamber, and in the morning when I woke, she was there to greet me, her ample bosom already adorned with a cameo, a lace handkerchief tucked inside her dress for emergencies.

It was in just that place on one such morning that I awoke to my beloved Aunt Tooty singing, “I have a surprise for you!” Lifting me out of my drawer, she danced me around the room and then sat me in her lap. “You have a new baby brother!” she said. “Isn't that wonderful news?”

I knew that my mother was going to have a new baby, and I understood vaguely that its arrival was imminent when my father took me to Aunt Tooty's. I also knew that everyone waited with bated breath for it to be a boy. Mom was forty and had two daughters already, it was the least God could do for her. But I wasn't sure that it was wonderful news. I'd wanted the baby, and I was happy that my mother and he were safe. Still, what if Aunt Tooty loved him more than me? What if he got to sleep in the drawer, my drawer, and I had to be relegated to the couch, or worse, a bed! What if I could no longer dance on my Aunt Tooty's feet or if she stopped slipping me extra freshbaked rugela or humentashen because she was too busy cooing over my new baby brother?

I needn't have worried. Aunt Tooty knew exactly how a little girl might react to news of a special sibling. “Now, you know,” she said, pointing to my drawer-bed, “this is your special place when you come to see me. This isn't someplace anyone else can have when they come here. So don't think you can give this drawer to your little brother when he is old enough to sleep here. I'll fix a nice drawer for him too, but not this one. Oh, no, this one is just yours.

Is that okay,
shana
?” she asked. (I loved when she called me
shana;
she told me it was Yiddish for “pretty”. Then she swooped me into her arms and, humming a Yiddish melody, danced me into the kitchen for some milk and mundelbrot. The smell of simmering soup already permeated the little room. Pulling the lace hanky from her bosom, I began to suck my thumb, fingering her cameo with my free hand. The scent of her talcum reminded me of babies.

“When can I see my new brother?” I asked. I was ready to meet the long-sought-after son who I knew would never take my place, not in the drawer and not in Aunt Tooty's heart. “When can I see my new baby?”

“Today!” she said. “But first let's put away your bed. Next time you come, I want it to be all ready for you.” She handed me a bag full of homemade cookies and I, in turn, relinquished her handkerchief. Together we prepared and stowed my bed, then went into the sepia sitting room to await the sound of my father's big, black Buick, the sight of my mother and the squalls of my new baby brother.

Elayne Clift

If It's Tuesday

F
ew things are more delightful than grandchildren
fighting over your lap.

Doug Larson

From the kitchen I hear the crash and the baby's wail. “Oh my gosh!” I shout as I reach the scene in the living room. The bouncer is upended, baby and all, and her two-year-old brother stands beside it, wide-eyed, lips quivering. I pull the baby into my arms and check her body for welts and bruises. All clear. Hugs and kisses calm her, and I turn my attention to the culprit, who stretches his arms upward.

“Up,” he cries. His eyes fill with tears. “Up.”

I sweep him into my free arm. “It's all right, lovey,” I say between kisses. “You have to be gentle with baby sister; you could hurt her.”

It is Grandma day at my house, and I'm hoping my grandson's rambunctious activity is a result of Easter candy and not his recent second birthday.

I am not the kind of grandparent I intended to be. After raising five children, I planned to model this phase of life after my mother, who defined her grandmotherly intentions days after my first child was born. “I will not babysit. In fact, I'll be happy to hire a baby-sitter for you, but I will not baby-sit.”

There was no doubt my mother loved the children, and they loved her, but all were content to sit across the table from one another sipping tea and eating oatmeal cookies for an hour twice a week. There was no diaper changing, lap sitting or neck nuzzling in my mother's house. Just short, polite visits and occasional dinners, always with me in attendance, the keys to the car in my pocket in case someone forgot the rules.

It worked for my mother, and I imagined it working for me. But when my son placed my first grandchild in my arms, I fell in love. Defenses melted, and the hardness in me turned to mush.

“Do I have to give him back?” I asked.

My waking hours following the birth of this baby were filled with a longing like one feels for a new love. Dropping by for baby hugs became part of my daily routine. It was a gift to hold this new little life close and breathe in his newness, to watch his face when he slept and his eyes wander around the room when he was awake. I couldn't get enough of him.

And so when it was time for my daughter-in-law to return to work, I found myself offering to baby-sit one day a week.

“Are you sure?”

I wasn't really, and I thought of telling them I'd changed my mind.
What are you thinking?
I asked myself.
This is your
time. You've raised your children, cut back on work. You're free.
You have time to write, read, do whatever you want. Don't you
remember how old you are?

“I'll give it a try,” I told my son and his wife. “We'll see how it goes, whether it's too much.”

That was the beginning of our Tuesdays together. They belonged to little Gordie and me. Everything else was put aside—appointments, phone calls, bills. I fed, diapered and cooed. I reveled in his smiles and tickled him into giggles. We played peek-a-boo and so-big and read
Goodnight Moon.
I searched his gums for budding teeth and watched as he took his first wobbly steps between the couch and coffee table, applauding himself when he reached his goal. We went to the beach and threw rocks in the water and went “so high” on the swings in the park. We stopped at the bakery and ate cookies before lunch. I heard his first words. And then words formed sentences.