Grandma, you asked a couple of years ago if we would write your eulogy early, before you died because you wanted to know what it is we'd say. You wanted to enjoy your legacy in life and not miss the show in death. Some of us scoffed at the idea and I couldn't fathom it. Not now, not later. As you spoke of your inevitable mmortality, after all you were in your 90's. I couldn't imagine you not there a phone call away, even when you yelled at me for not picking it up or calling often enough. Here is what I'd say, what I will say a little too early, a little too late.
My earliest memory of my grandma is going to visit her at the condo in Florida. I remember primping for the plane ride, the excitement building in my small body threatening to bust open the rental car seat belt like a superhero busting out of his everyday clothes. Once we pulled into the lot, my sisters and I were let loose and ran through the neatly trimmed bushes, scraping our cheeks, to make a direct path to apartment #110. The doorbell, a slight stir, a loud shout, "I'm coming!" and then what I can only describe as the car wash of love. We were; handled, kissed, touched inspected, unclothed for a huge zerbert on the belly, then the tuchus, reclothed. "Shayna Maydelah", you'd say, beautiful girl. In the end, we were deposited on the sofa in front of candy dishes filled with m&m's and other goodies to eat while we dried off. Your love was always completely demonstrative. It was a love attack. We were bathed in it. We were also fed it. Tins packed with chocolate chip cookies, chinese noodle candies, italian green beans, and most importantly chicken noodle soup. A few months ago when I visited 6 months pregnant, you cooked it one last time. It wore you out. At the apartment, Wendy and I warmed it and could not believe it tasted just like it always did. We ate and ate bowls of soup and I whispered to my daughter who will only know her great-grandmother's soup this way, 'this is for you".
As we grew you knit us bootie after bootie, mufflers, and blankets for college. You wrapped your love around us and made extra pairs of booties for us to give to those we loved. How many toes have you warmed?
As an adult, you loved me through sharing stories. I do not have a friend, hardly an acquaintance, that does not know, has not cracked up from a story about my grandma. You always told me the truth as you saw it. This quality of not filtering your thoughts or feelings and keeping it real no matter what has hurt some feelings during your lifetime, but as my grandma, it is the best way you have loved me. You made me, we joked, of the same heart. I bought a video camera to try to capture it. It had to be a fancy one so it could attempt to pick up the sounds, the map of your skin, the cadences of your voice, some essence of you but it is a poor substitute for memory.
Grandma, you've shown no restraint. You've bathed me in your love, wrapped me in it, nourished, created, and sustained me with it. In gratitude, even more than grief, I will go home to Brooklyn, the place where you raised my dad and most of your stories were born. I will put my booties on and wrap my daughter in her blanket you knit a lemon yellow because babies should wear bright colors, and with my heart filled with the love you put there, i will tell her, "Your great-grandma was a real character. She adored you, Shanyna Maydelah, before she knew you, you were alrealdy loved." It's a good start.
