John McCaslin
P
leasure is the flower that fades; remembrance
is the lasting perfume.
Stanislas Jean de Marquis Boufflers
I slowly got out of the car at the end of a long, discouraging day. The February sky was gray to match my mood as I walked down our driveway to retrieve the mail. I looked at the neglected flowerbeds in our front yard. Busy with other pursuits, I hadn't planted any spring bulbs, mulched around the Japanese maple or cut back the English ivy, which threatened to choke out everything in its path.
As I approached the house, I reached down to move a large rock from a raised flowerbed. It hadn't hurt anything in the weedy spot, but there was something familiar about the rock itself. I smoothed the dirt off of its dimpled surface; then I recognized it. It had belonged to my grandmother, Essie May Brown, and I had claimed it from one of the rock borders she'd fashioned around the flowerbeds in her backyard. Holding that rock took me right back to the 1950s, to Grandma's garden on West Shadowlawn Avenue in north Atlanta.
“Why do you have so many flowers, Grandma?” I wiped the perspiration from my forehead, getting dirt on my face and in my curly red hair. At age four, I wasn't worried about a little dirt. Grandma smiled contentedly as she looked around her. “Flowers are my life,” she said. “When I sit on the sewin' room floor hemmin' up a dress for Mrs. Alston or one of those purty young debs I sew for, I think about bein' out here in my garden, with all of God's beautiful flowers . . . and with you, my sweet man.”
“I'm not a man, Grandma. I'm a girl,” I grumbled, but I grinned up at her. She always called me that. Nobody in the family ever knew why she chose to call me her sweet man or “Luke,” her other pet name for me (she hardly ever called me “Kathleen” unless she was reprimanding me), but I didn't really mind.
I spent a lot of time at Grandma's house while Mom accompanied Dad on frequent business trips, and Grandma and I were the closest of buddies. Grandma made everything seem like an adventure, from picking up pins in the sewing room to planting bulbs, as we were doing that day.
“Don't drop this'n on his head,” she warned. “Dig him a little hole hereâoh, that's a good'n. Now put him right there, and point his little head up so he can poke it out to the sun. Now don't cover him up too much. . . . That's right, maybe a little dab more. Let's give 'im some water now, he's thirsty. Give him a right smart more so he can start to grow. That's enough. He says, âThank you, ma'am!'”
“Why do we have to be so careful with each one, Grandma?” I asked.
“Now, Luke,” Grandma said patiently, “God made rules for flowers just like he did for everything else. If you don't follow his rules, you won't grow any flowers. And if you put the bulbs in too far with their heads point'n' down at the devil, they won't ever see God's purty sunshine.”
Most all of Grandma's bulbs grew lavishly into the sunlight. In the spring, her backyard was a gardener's dream. First the little white, yellow and purple crocuses unfurled their heads from green spiky leaves. Then came the nodding snowdrops, dainty snowflakes, sherbet-colored daffodils and narcissi, bold Dutch tulips whose bulbs had been special-ordered from Breck's, and yellow clouds of forsythia. Easter time would bring a snowstorm of pink and white dogwood blossoms, with elegant, lacy, white, pink and lavender hyacinths underneath. Irises would bloom later, like the pink Mobile azaleas whose tight buds were already swelling the bushes. In summer, big hydrangea bushes reared their blue and lavender mop heads, with fragrant climbing roses in the background. Lush, green, grassy paths were prone to invading violets, the one weed Grandma tolerated. She loved the violets' miniature purple and white faces, and admired their hardiness.
“Don't worry about him,” she'd say. “You can step on âim and he'll spring right back up!”
A charming white picket fence surrounded it all, like a frame around a lovely picture. And in the very center of the garden, a giant old pecan tree full of chattering squirrels and birds rose majestically, sprouting green leaf-buds, with a beautiful raised flowerbed at its base. A rock-border necklace encircled it with old-fashioned pansies, their cheerful faces upturned, peeking from its crevices. It was truly a paradise for a little girl who learned many of life's important lessons digging bulbs with her grandma.
I held a rock from that border now, forty-three years later. I'd taken it from Grandma's garden when the house was sold after her death in 1992. The new owners mowed everything down, tore down the old picket fence and installed a chain-link enclosure for their Doberman. Only the old pecan tree and the memories remain.
Well,
I thought,
that's not really all that's left.
Grandma's favorite gifts to her family were, of course, flowers. Grandma gave me a Woburn Abbey rose bush that still out-blooms everything on our street.
I gently placed the old rock at the edge of my flowerbed and pulled up a weed. As I stood up I noticed something green under an overgrown holly. Pushing aside some pine straw, I instantly recognized the grass-like spikes: five mounds of Grandma's Star of Bethlehem!
The tears came as I grabbed a trowel and gardening gloves, and gently weeded and mulched around these symbols of my heritage. Just then the sunshine broke through the clouds and shone down on Grandma's flowers, still thriving after all this time. My grouchiness dissipated as I worked to restore the flowerbed, and my five-year-old son ran to hug me. “Whatcha doin', Mom?” he asked.
“See those little plants, sweet man?” I said, brushing dirt off my son's sweaty face. “Sit down here with me, and I'll tell you all about a special gift. . . .”
Kathleen Craft Boehmig
H
e that can only boast of a distinguished lineage,
boasts of that which does not belong
to himself; but he that lives worthily of it is
always held in the highest honor.
Junius
S
uch as thy words are, such will thy affections
be esteemed.
Socrates
My grandma's words were full of wisdom. “You know, dear,” she was fond of saying, “you never stop learning.”
You don't?
I wondered about this line a lot as a child.
Never?
Even when you are as old as she is?
Grandma was a great listener and wanted to hear all about my job as a kindergarten teacher. “You are a real teacher,” she would tell me.
Regularly she asked, “Tell me, sweetheart, is there anyone special in your life?”
I would tell her about the man I was dating and somehow her words would make me question. “Trust your heart,” she'd say. “Your heart knows.” And sure enough, when I took Grandma's advice, no, he was not the one.
In her early nineties she moved into an assisted-living home. Her stories became the same story over and over, but just hearing her voice was soothing. It didn't matter that I'd heard it all before.
She told stories of leaving Russia as a child, alone, sent by her father to join his parents in America. “I got out,” she said. “We had no idea what was about to happen. The rest of my family didn't make it, but for some reason, I did.”
Her stories of those years were about eating her first orange on the boat, about her stern but kind grandparents in New York City, walks in the rain to the library. “I couldn't get enough of the books,” she said.
The night Grandma had a stroke, at age ninety-seven, we thought that would be the end of her long life, but she lived another two years. The stroke left her unable to walk and talk. For the first time in her life my grandma was forced into silence. Visiting her was sad. I had never spent time with her in so much silence before.
“Hi, Grandma,” I'd say.
“Uhnnnnn,” was all she was capable of saying.
“My garden's doing well but something got the peonies. Maybe deer.”
“Uhmmm, mmmmn, uhhh mmm,” she would mumble.
I would nod and say, “Yes . . . yes . . . that's right,” here and there. I knew she was giving me advice about the garden. She murmured and muttered. I nodded and talked. My heart broke from missing her words, her voice.
The next summer I met Andy. He became a great friend, and I was nothing less than thrilled when we began to date in earnest. I told him about Grandma and suggested we visit her. On the way to her nursing home I filled him in as much as possible about her condition and her wisdom.
“Andy, she was always filled with the most amazing words. She could stop me in my tracks and really make me think. You have to realize that the woman you meet is not really her. All she can do now is sit and murmur. But know that if she could talk, she would be saying something really wise.”
“I understand,” he said, but still I felt he was about to miss out.
We found Grandma sitting in her room.
“Grandma,” I said, “I'd like you to meet Andy.”
She looked up at us, first at me, then Andy. She studied him for quite some time. Sometimes she looked at me like that, only to close her eyes and drift into a long nap. But this time she lifted her gnarled hand, a great effort for her, and gave it to him. As he held her hand she continued to look deep into his eyes for quite a while. I felt embarrassed. Would she never let go of his hand? Would she ever look away? Would it be okay for Andy to drop her hand? I was trying to think of words to break this awkward silence, but the most unlikely person found them first. In a loud and clear voice my grandma said to Andy, “Welcome to the family.”
Andy and I were married within the year.
Laura Mueller
Grandmother's Language of Love
A
thousand words will not leave so deep an
impression as one deed.
Henrik Ibsen
I didn't speak Polish and she didn't speak English, but we both spoke love. That's how I remember my grandmother, especially during one holiday a long time ago. On a very cold Christmas Eve in a Polish neighborhood in Detroit, I opened the door to my grandmother's house and ran right into her arms.
“Busha,” I called, smiling with my whole body, delighted to see her.
She hugged me, then placed her soft hands on both sides of my face. Cupping my cheeks gently, she spoke lovingly to me with her eyes. Grandmother's face was inches from mine, and I loved looking into her beautiful eighty-year-old eyesâthose eyes that said so much.
Bending over, she kissed my forehead. I stretched my six-year-old arms around her aproned front and inhaled her Christmas-cookie-dough smell. She motioned for me to hurry to the dining room. I fumbled around, trying to unbutton my scratchy wool coat with the silky lining. Grandmother came and helped me, then watched me stuff my earmuffs into a pocket and my hand muff inside the sleeve in the “don't want to lose it” spot. I remember feeling so happy to have earmuffs and not to have to wear a babushka, that old-fashioned scarf. My grandmother pointed me to the bedroom, where I put my coat on the bed, already piled high with the coats of my cousins, aunts and uncles. She caressed my new dress, took my hand and smiled. She twirled me around to get a good look, then we snugly walked to the dining room to join my cousins. I hoped they too would notice my new dress and shoes. They, being mostly boys, didn't notice. They were all sitting on the floor, impatiently waiting for my grandmother's clocks to chime. I gave up my ladylike pose, shrugged, sat down and wiggled in next to the only cousin who had red hair just like mine. Grandmother left me and went to the kitchen to be with my aunts.
I tucked my black, shiny, patent-leather shoes with the pokey buckle underneath me and joined the wait. Grandmother collected all kinds of clocks. I never knew all the types, but there were a lot of them and I believed they were magical. The chiming would start with the deep sound of the tall grandfather clock with the gold pendulum, then the small sound of the table clock on the buffet, then the bong-bong-bong sound of the skinny grandfather clock. Sound from the other clocks moved all around the room. The chimes didn't sound the same, but they all spoke “clock.” Each of them was very special and had come from Poland, just like my grandmother.
The last clocks finished chiming, signaling us to follow my parents, aunts, uncles and cousins to the kitchen, where they sat chattering and laughing in Polish. I looked around at some of the special things my grandmother did to create Christmas magic. She knew the language of love. There was the embroidered tablecloth draped across the table, the green smells-like-the-forest branches carefully placed all around the rooms, and the sound of the china clinking and the silverware clanging. My mom said, “All Grandmother's china and silverware came from Poland, too.”
When the adults were ready, we began the
oplatek
ceremony. Grandmother motioned for me to stand up from the little bench I was sitting on and she gave me an
oplatek,
a wafer like the ones used in Communion in the Catholic Church. They had pictures of Baby Jesus, Blessed Mary and angels on them. My dad said that
oplateks
are known as the bread of love.