Five years ago today, you lost your mom. While you and Grandma never shared the close bond you and I were lucky enough to have, I know losing her was difficult for you; perhaps more so than you even exposed to those around you.
While she may not have been the warm and nurturing grandmother I was lucky to have in dad's mom for 4 and a half years, she was my grandmother and I loved her as such. She had a reputation in our family for placing more weight on looks than a person's character or other attributes, as evidenced by her infamous comment to my oldest cousin Carrie: "some day you'll be beautiful, just like me." (Spoiler alert for those wondering: Carrie DID turn out to be beautiful, despite the amount of time Joanne and I spend ragging on her for the unfortunate pair of specs she sported throughout her youth.) Dad later told me that she had a similar comment about me on the day I was born: "She'll probably be cute some day!" I can still hear him bursting into laughter over that comment. He also regularly told me I did myself no favors when I was little and asked you both, in front of Grandma, "Can we go to my real Grandma's now?" But perhaps the most well-known story of my childhood regarding my relationship with Grandma was the time when I was 6 and I pulled every single rubber grape she had on display in her living room off their vines. I can still remember it being oddly satisfying, and I'm not going to lie, I'd probably do it again. But alas, she never quite got over that, and she brought it up for years and years, despite the fact that I bought her replacement sets any time I came across them.
You and dad used to often tell me, "Your grandmother loves you as much as she knows how." But I really only ever saw things from my perspective, and I was always defensive of you and the way she'd make you feel. You never stopped trying to gain her acceptance, and I think you may have overlooked the fact that your answer was as simple and as honest as the one you had for me: she loved you as much as she knew how. But, seeing how much love you pumped into every second of your time with me and Neal until your last breath and knowing that loving us unconditionally was something that was deeply ingrained in everything you were as a mother, it makes sense that this answer was never quite good enough for you. I used to always tell people I wasn't sure how you turned out to be the kind of mom you did with an upbringing like the one you had with Grandma, though you always reassured me that Grandpa was the nurturing one and Grandma was the disciplinarian. I think you loved me and Neal the way you needed and wanted to be loved by Grandma, and I don't know that I ever properly thanked you for that. Because the love you showed us was perfect, even if you never got to experienced that kind of love yourself.
As for Grandma, I learned as I got older that her upbringing wasn't easy either. She didn't have the mother figure everyone deserves, and I believe you either become a good parent because of the example you had or in spite of the example you had. But it doesn't always work that way. I'm sure she recognized parts of her mother in herself that she probably wasn't proud of. I'm sure she just wanted to be the best for you, Uncle Lex, and Aunt Threse. But I just don't know that she had the tools or the resources or the capabilities to do that.
I think I learned during her last few months that my frustration came more from how she treated you than the way she treated us. Looking back, I know she was sick in the end, and I know she was confused, and I know her anger probably wasn't coming from her heart like I thought it was at the time. But I also know where you were at that point in your life; that you were, as you often did, beating yourself up for not being good enough, and for lacking something. But you were perfect, just as you were, and I remember the exact moment when I was sitting in that car by the marina with you, and I decided enough was enough. Everyone had made comments over the later years about how she was tougher on you than anyone else, and as I sat in that car with you listening to you pour your heart out about how you truly believed you weren't good enough, I had reached my breaking point.
The last conversation I ever had with my last living grandparent went something like this: I placed my hand on her shoulder, looked her square in the eye, and said "Hey Grandma, you know how you talk about your mom and how much she used to beat you down emotionally and make you feel so small?" She nodded her head in affirmation. I said "Well, I see you doing the same thing to my mom and you need to knock it off." She looked at me and told me to go to Hell. I believe I told her I'd see her there, we got in the car, and we drove away. I never saw her again, but when you called me two months later to tell me that she had passed away, I remember saying "oh my God, the last thing I said to her was that I'd see her in Hell." You assured me that nobody had ever stuck up for you the way I did for you that day, that you were proud of me, and that Grandma knew I loved her and loved me in return but just hadn't been herself recently.
I do wish things would have ended differently. There was a period of time when Grandma and I respected and appreciated each other for exactly who we were, and when you were taken out of the equation, we actually got along quite well. I went to visit her several times in Dunedin, and I have fond memories of those visits.
Despite your not-so-perfect relationship, you sent her off with a speech at her memorial that brought us all to tears and left me watching you in amazement and with such admiration. I remember thinking "I don't know how I'll ever find the strength to stand up like that after losing either of MY parents, but I have got to pay them the kind of respect she just did for Grandma." Unfortunately that opportunity came less than five years later for both of you, and I'm absolutely certain that the strength I somehow possessed to stand up in front of your closest friends and family and send you off with the tributes you both so deserved came straight from you.
When you were first diagnosed, I actually spent a lot of time wondering if Grandma was stealing you from us to punish me for that last interaction we had. I know now that it's a ridiculous thought and in her right frame of mind, Grandma never ever would have wished pain or suffering on any of her family, and we all experienced both in some way or another.
I hope she welcomed you home with open arms that day you left us (since I don't really believe she went to Hell.) I hope you've found a way to love each other up there just as you are, and not as you wished the other could be. And I hope there is an endless supply of rubber grapes, all perfectly placed on their plastic vines, without the fingerprints of a potentially cute six year old.
