I was named after a deceased grandmother and great grandmother – Barbra Eva. My brother was named after 2 deceased grandfathers –John Lewis. My one remaining grandparent, Dora died when I was 9 years old on Christmas Day. I don’t have particularly warm, wonderful or especially happy memories of this one grandmother. When other grandmothers baked cookies and took their grandchildren to the park, my “nana” came over and gave me a metronome for my 7th birthday. After winding it up, she placed it on the grand piano in the living room and made me “do my scales” in time with the metronome.
It was probably at this moment that I started my search for grandparents. Real grandparents. The kind that told of stories of great adventures when emigrating from foreign lands to this country. The kind with sourballs of many colors in their old wrinkly pants pockets. The kind that got in trouble with your mom ‘cause they bought you a puppy for your birthday without first getting permission. These were the grandparents my friends seemed to have- and though I had many wonderful great aunts, uncles and cousins, somehow I felt cheated that I had no sleep -overs at grandma’s and she never made a doll house with me.
Then long before the women’s movement or “take a daughter to work day” became a banner for the liberal feminist movement, my mother would take me to work with her on an occasional Sunday or holiday. My mother, you see, didn’t work in some stuffy office with rows of typewriters and copy machines. My mother was the administrator of a sub acute long term care facility in the early 60’s. Instead of typewriters, she had rows and rows of old people. Some in the recreation room learning how to work a loom or were found stuffing monkeys and elephants for sale in the gift shop. Other’s were in physical and occupational therapy either screaming in pain as they were encouraged to walk or squealing with delight at walking 50 feet post stroke. Many of these wall to wall elderly people spoke English with “funny accents” and would tell me stories of coming over in ships too crowded for a mouse, seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time and kissing the ground at Ellis Island. These old people had little round hard candies in their wrinkled pants pockets. Mrs. Kohn even had Almond Joys that were all mushy in her apron that she always wore around the facility.
And so, I knew at that young age that I had found my grandparents. It was then that my career path
became clear. I am grateful to this day for the privilege it has been to be welcomed into their lives over the past 35 years and getting to know them. I knew there had to be a reason why I had no grandparents. It was because I needed to make room in my life for the hundreds of your grandparents that I shared- and you never even knew why!
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