Happy Birthday, Mom!

Watching: The West Wing. Love this program.

Amused by: Matthew's recently-acquired habit of humming almost non-stop. Any song he hears is fodder for him: "Over the River and Through the Woods," "Allouette," and "Jingle Bells" have all been on his personal playlist in the past few days.

Missing Grandparents

As we were driving in the car today, Matthew remarked, "Remember when Dziadzi stepped on Babci's* toe?"

Stephen added, "Yeah, her toe was black and blue, and her toenail fell off!"

The interesting thing about this exchange is that the incident under discussion occured more than seven years before the twins were born. In fact, Stephen and Matthew never knew their grandfather since he died suddenly of a heart attack less than six months after accidentally injuring his wife's toe.

And yet, it is not really surprising to me; I grew up feeling as though I knew my maternal grandfather, who died before I was a year old. This is because I have heard "Frederic stories," all my life from my mother and from my aunt and uncles. Whenever two or more of my mother's siblings are gathered, the conversation inevitably turns to their father.

All of his children agree that my grandfather was a stern, undemonstrative, demanding man. Widowed in his forties with four children, Frederic expected hard work, unquestioning obedience, and academic excellence from his two daughters and two sons. Other personality qualities of his are open to varying interpretation. Depending on who you believe, my grandfather was either a loving father, despite his flaws (my mother) or a sadistic tyrant (my youngest uncle).

Certain "Fred phrases" have been passed down through the generations. Even today, if I find myself behind a road hog, I'll mutter, "He's taking his half of the road in the middle." My grandfather hated the Mummers (the feather-clad, marching string bands of Philadelphia), and would scornfully say of them, "One rope would do for them all." Of course, he loathed anything to do with Philadelphia, which must have been a sore point since his wife's family came from that city.

Even my most embittered uncle admits that his father had a few redeeming personal qualities. For instance, Frederic was a great cat lover. It seems as though with his pets he was free to express the tender side of his personality that he withheld from his children. He was also surprisingly good with babies. My favorite story about my grandfather concerns how he treated me, his first grandchild and the only one he ever knew.

I was a difficult, high-strung infant, prone to long stretches of crying, according to my parents. In those days, decades before the phrase "attachment parenting" was first uttered, most people believed that babies could be spoiled by too much holding. My poor parents were so young, just barely into their twenties and only married a year. I am sure it was overwhelming for them to cope with a difficult baby.

One day when I was a few months old, my grandfather came over for a visit and heard me crying in the bathroom. My frazzled parents, weary of my screaming, had placed me in my infant seat in the empty tub and shut the door, trying to get a few minutes of peace. My grandfather immediately went into the bathroom, retrieved me from my seat, and held me until I stopped crying.

To me, that one loving act speaks volumes about the man's essential goodness, despite his other character flaws.

In contrast to my impressions of my colorful grandfather, my mother's mother is virtually unknown to me. She died when my mother was only thirteen; whether that loss was too painful for Mom to relive or whether she was too young to remember a lot about her own mother, she never talks much about her. I can look at the few pictures we have of my grandmother and see familiar features: the curly dark hair shared by my mother and all her siblings, the space between the top front two teeth that my mother, Stephen, and I all have. But I don't feel the same connection to her that I do to my grandfather because of all the stories I've heard about him.

I'm sorry my own boys won't really know my other grandmother, Nana, who died this summer. For the past few years she was ailing and not the vital, vibrant woman I knew. I want to keep her memory alive, so I tell them stories about her and about what it was like to visit her house when I was a child. I hope that they can share my memories of her since they won't really have any of their own.

In the same way, I encourage my mother-in-law and Tab to talk about Dziadzi to them. My father-in-law would have loved knowing his grandsons, and they would have loved him. I hope that through hearing about him, they will in some way feel as though they do know him. And not just as the guy who stepped on Babci's toe.

* According to my mother-in-law, Dziadzi (pronounced JAH-jee) and Babci (BOB-chee) are the Polish terms for grandfather and grandmother.     Back

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