She wasn't an "American hero", like a soldier or a war hero...but for me, she was my hero for how strong and selfless she was. She practically raised me. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to. She was always there for me, in my good times and all of the bad times. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to. She went to parent teacher conferences when my mom was mad and had stopped talking to me for whatever reason (she did that many times, and no one ever understood why she was mad, but it could go on for a couple weeks at a time). Not because she had to, but because she wanted to. She kept my deepest secrets from everyone. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to. She worked extra hours once, to pay for my school pictures and year book. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to. She never raised her voice to me, even when she was really mad. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to. She wrote me a letter everyday when i was at summer camp for two weeks, a couple summers in a row. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to.
Her name was Elizabeth Mary Crandall, which she always hated. She went by Betty instead. It suited her. She was caring, and warm. She was sweet, and kind. She had a light about her that i haven't seen in many people since. And when i was a kid and i'd hear that some kids never saw their grandparents, or they were mean people, it made me so sad for them. They didn't have someone in their life like i did. I realized how very lucky i was and how much she truly blessed my life just by being in it. She was the only grandparent i had. But the thing is, i never felt like i was missing the other 3. She more than made up for the lack of grandparents in my life. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to.
Once when i was in 9th grade, it became very apparent to me that i didn't have a regular family. I know...it took me that long to really "get" it. My oldest friend in the world, who i had known since birth, asked if i wanted to join him and a bunch of his friends after school the following day to go hang out. I said i needed to check with my "parents". He looked at me and said, "Umm...it's just your mom. So...you mean parENT". I was a bit shocked actually! I always felt my grandma was one of my parents. Regardless of the fact that she was my grandma and not my mom. To me it didn't matter. She was a parent to me. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to.
She was the one who knew all my secrets. She was the one i told i smoked back when i was 16, and she was the one who insisted she buy my cigarettes for me so i didn't get anything "funny". We shared a smoke once. I was outside smoking, when she came out of the house. She came down our steps and realized she forgotten the shed key. So she asked if i would "be a dear" and go get it for her. I set my cigarette on the step and ran into the house. When i came back out the door, there was my small 5'1" grandma with my cigarette in her hand, slowly putting it to her lips. She puffed on it, and handed it back to me. I was in shock! She was an ex-smoker, and had quit before i was born, but with this one...there was no inhaling. She breathed it in just far enough to puff the smoke back out. I said, "What was that? You didn't even inhale!" to which she replied, "Well neither do you!" I laughed and proved her wrong. She then said..."I almost miss a good smoke with my coffee". LOL!!
She was always there waiting for me after school when the bus would drop me off last...after an hour on the road. Sometimes she would have fresh chocolate chip cookies waiting for me. Sometimes she'd be standing at the door waiting for me with a big smile on her face. Sometimes she'd be in the garden picking flowers. Sometimes she would be sitting at the table with a cup of coffee. In the 12 years of school, there were only a small handful of times she wasn't there when i got home.
We lived in a trailer park, not like the crappy ones you see in movies or on TV, but a pretty nice one actually. She had a single wide when my mom and two sisters came to live with her. When i was 8, we had a grease fire, and the entire thing burned down. Without any fear, she ran into the kitchen as it started to engulf in flames. She didn't know it was a grease fire and attempted to throw water on it to put it out. She was splashed with burning grease and her arm was burned in a few places. She came running back out of the house, as my mom ran in to get their purses and car keys and to call the fire department. We ran across the drive way and it was then, i saw her cry for the first time. She stood there with her hands on her cheeks crying, listening to all of her family heirlooms explode as the fire engines waled in the distance.
After the fire was out, the EMT's had bandaged her up, and everyone safe, she went next door to our neighbor Ollie's house. I think he always had a little crush on her. He was a sweet man, sweet on my grandma. He'd always bring her little things. Like a small mince meat pie, or flowers from his garden. That day, they sat on his steps and he offered her a drink. Whiskey if i remember correctly. They sat drinking together, while he tried to cheer her up with some jokes. When he moved, as his kids insisted he go to an old folks home, i think the neighborhood was a little darker for her.
Her garden was amazing! We lived on the corner, so we had a bigger chunk of yard than most of the other folks living there. She easily had over 75 lilac bushes. All purple. In the summer she would put on her yard work clothes (a pair of black culottes and a yellow tube top) and go do weeding, plant her iris bulbs and pick bunches of lilacs for the table. The smell of lilac has always brought me back to those days of my childhood and her garden. If i have no other flowers in my wedding bouquet, i must have purple lilacs.
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| My grandma, holding me...wearing her yellow tube top and black culottes, with my sisters Kim and Raylea. I was 3 weeks old and we were going camping!! |
Christmas was the best!! She would dance around the house singing to all the old Christmas songs, as she decorated. She'd usually sit and watch us decorate the tree and then she'd put the tinsel on it. She'd spend the entire month of December baking. She'd bake cookies for days, fruit cake to send to my cousins in Cali, pound cake for us, pies, cherry tarts when i was little...you name it, she could and would bake it! Once when my mom and i were having some issues, i was probably about 13 or 14, i wrote a letter to "Santa". I was frustrated and just needed to vent, but i felt bad about venting to my grandma again. I put the letter in the mail box and went about my business. Christmas morning there was the letter i had written, in my stocking. On the back was "Santa's" response...in my grandma's handwriting. I'd give anything to have saved all the letters she wrote me over the years when i was at camp, or after i moved out.
When i was 15, my mom, grandma, sister and her boyfriend (now hubby...bless him!) and myself all piled into a minivan and drove to L.A. for my cousins wedding. My sweet grandma, on occasion would get a little blitzed. And it was always SO funny to me!! She went stumbling around the pool to go to the rest room and my sister asked me to go get her so she didn't fall in! I held her hand as we walked back to the party and she asked me what i was doing. I just smiled and told her, "Just watchin over you". She patted my hand and said, "Ok. That's nice darling". We all piled back into the minivan, along with my great aunt Phillis after the wedding and started the long drive home. My grandma and my aunty sat in the very back and talked...for over 200 miles solid. My grandma slurring her words all the way...and my poor not-quite-brother-in-law mumbling about how chatty they were! LMAO!! That trip...oh wow! I wish i had had a video camera!!
When i was 19 and found out i was pregnant, i was actually terrified to tell her. I didn't want to disappoint her. My mom insisted i wait until i was showing to tell her. But when i finally did, she wasn't disappointed, she was excited for me. And happy to have a second great-grandchild. While i was pregnant, she got very sick. I insisted she go to the doctor as she hadn't been keeping food down. She'd start coughing and then throw up. The day i went to get her for the appointment, she was sitting on the floor in her room. She told me to go to her desk and get her little book and find the paper inside. It was a 'do not resuscitate' letter, signed by witnesses and stamped. I burst into tears as i called the ambulance. We got her to the ER and i sat with her as doctors came in to see her. They seemed more concerned with the sore on her head than with what actually brought her in. She had hit her head on the car door numerous times and it had gotten infected. It was a STAPH infection that had deteriorated her skull. Her brain was literally covered up by her hair. She was admitted and we started on the path to try to get her well. She had a surgery to put a shunt into her esophagus so she could eat again, as well as 3 surgeries to repair her head. They said she had brain cancer due to the injury, liver cancer and esophagus cancer, and she had suffered a mini stroke the day i went to get her.
After weeks in the hospital, 2 weeks in a nursing home to remain on her IV meds, we finally got her home! She seemed to be doing so much better. She was up baking again, walking with her walker, and her light had returned. But one Monday i came over and her head was bandaged up again. I asked her why. She said that her and mom didn't tell my sister or i, as they didn't want us to worry, but the plastic surgeon wanted to clean up her brain a little more. They had already removed quite a bit of damaged tissue and she was 82 years old. Why that woman didn't just leave her the hell alone was beyond me! It was almost over night when she wasn't able to talk anymore due to the meds and how much brain tissue they had removed. She was then bedridden and couldn't communicate with us. A couple weeks later, i delivered my baby, 6 weeks early. My mom came by one night to tell me that she felt my grandma was hanging on to see him.
We were in the hospital for 2 weeks before either of us could go home. The day i left, the first stop was my grandma's house. She was laying in her hospital bed in the living room. I smiled at her, kissed her cheek and handed her my new baby boy. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and brought him closer to her chest. They took a nap together. The next day my mom picked me up and we went to get a disposable camera so i could get a picture of my grandma and my baby together. By the time we got back to her house, she had passed away in her sleep, with her home health aid holding her hand.
It's funny, after 16 years, you would think i wouldn't remember as many of these details as i do. But sadly, i remember them all. I look back on it and wish i had stayed with her longer that day. Told her i loved her more. And not taken a nap when i came by with my baby. Sat with them instead.
There's not a day that goes by that i don't think about that amazing and wonderful woman who was my best friend for all those years. I still cry because i miss her. Christmas hasn't been the same since she died. And i can't seem to get any cookie recipe right without her. My mom tossed out her recipe box (I KNOW!!! I'll NEVER get over that!!) so I've had to recreate some of her recipes. Every Christmas she would make these "Mexican coffee cakes". They're really pineapple empanadas. But for 15 years, i tried and searched and tried and tried and TRIED to find a recipe that was like hers. I got close one year. But they weren't quite right and then in a move, i lost the recipe. So i had to start over. Last year, i succeeded!! After several days of cookie making disaster, gross recipes, crappy cookie press that i threw in the trash, Brooks trying to help revive them...i made those empanadas. When they came out of the oven, i put the glaze on them and waited. I tried not to get my hopes up, as everything up to that point didn't turn out like i wanted, so i was scared to try them. They smelled the same, they were much smaller than hers...almost like a cookie, but as i took the first bite, standing in between the kitchen and the living room staring at Brooks, tears ran down my cheeks! I had done it!! I found her recipe on the internet and it was EXACTLY THE SAME!!!! That was my Christmas win!! And if I'm never able to make cookies like hers, I'll at least have that recipe that i will make every year!!
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| We went wine tasting and i took this pic of her playing in the vines. The pic has seen better days, but it still resides on my fridge. |
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