My Grandma.
Anyone who knew my Grandma and my Grandpa knew that my Grandpa was the story teller and the jokester of the family. She played his straight man. I think that one of their funniest bits, and they didn’t even realize it, was when he would say: “I haven’t done or said anything right since the day I got married”. She would pipe right in – thinking that she was defending herself, “That’s not right!”.
And so it was. Him always joking he wasn’t good enough for her. Her making DAMN well sure that he was.
She wasn’t exactly like other grandmas, and she’d be the first person to tell you that. She didn’t like to bake, or tell a lot of nursery rhymes. She didn’t sing lullabies or or have much use for silly games. But if you wanted to learn how to set a table, make a bed properly, talk numbers, or play a SERIOUS game of Scrabble – she was your woman. And once you were old enough you could find plenty of wisdom for one hour every night at her kitchen table over a glass, well MAYBE two, but no more, of pink wine. And I mean EVERY NIGHT.
As a child, grandma traveled frequently with her grandparents George and Rachel Barrett, and her aunt Boo-ee, to Potterville, near Lansing, where her great grandparents lived. Back then it was an all-day trip by car. When I moved to East Lansing she took me to Potterville and showed me the graves of her ancestors there. She had a great respect for her ancestors and elder family members. On her father’s side of the family, her ancestors came to America while they were still Colonies. Her roots can be traced back to France and England, even into Royal bloodlines. Her mother’s parents were later immigrants from Sweden who came to this country with everything that they owned in a basket about the size of a bushel and settled just a few miles North of here in Fruitland Township, and prospered.
Grandma had many Aunts and Uncles who were childless. She had one brother and one cousin. Her family gatherings when I was young were LOTS of old people, I thought that’s what big families were. But look at us now as we turn from grandma’s ancestors to her descendants – 4 sons – 10 grandchildren – 15 great grandchildren – 3 great, great grandchildren. That’s 32 direct descendants. When you add in spouses, step children, and ex’s who don’t intend to ever leave the family – that’s about 50 people. And she kept VERY close tabs on each one of us!
From her early days of traveling with her grandparents she learned the value of that grandparent-grandchild relationship and she valued it deeply. She also learned to love to travel, something that she passed on to me. She and Grandpa traveled extensively, and as soon as we were old enough, grandchildren and even great grandchildren traveled with them. There were trips to Washington, DC, Gettysburg, Disney World, across Lake Michigan to Milwaukee. I can’t even imagine the number of times that she went just up the road to Deer Park, then Michigan’s Adventure, with Grandchildren, then Great Grandchildren over the years.
Of course, the trips always involved lessons. There was a lot to learn in Washington, DC. About the Government, the Constitution, The Declaration of Independence. I can still recite the Gettysburg Address. We had to learn All of the States and their Capitols. More importantly we learned how to travel the way and stick together as a family – A critical lesson that I pray does not die with her.
One of the more practical lessons came from Grandma’s certainty that every hotel was a fire trap. She taught me to always, ALWAYS study the map on the inside of the hotel room door for the fire escape route, and to keep important things that I might need in case of a quick escape, shoes, keys, wallet close together and in a similar spot in each hotel. This lesson actually paid off years later when I was traveling once with Clark’s niece and the fire alarm went off and we smelled smoke. I quickly grabbed my things, knowing in the dark right where they would be and we were right out the door into the smoky hall and down the nearest stairwell in an instant. We sat in our warm rental car in the parking ramp across the street while other people stood out in the cold until the fire was safely out and it was safe to go back in. Thanks Gram.
Grandma always had a sign hanging in her office that intrigued me as a child, but grew more significant me as an adult. It said: For when the one great counter comes to write against your name, He asks not that you won or lost, but how you played the game. That can be interpreted so many ways, but when I think about the significance of that in Grandma’s life I can’t help but think of several game-changing events that she faced, and how she played them. Early in her adult life she lost her father and faced alcoholism issues in her family. Later she served as caregiver to so many elderly relatives, even relatives by marriage. She had issues between business and family, and dividing herself between them especially as the family grew larger than the business. More recently she faced the deaths of my grandpa, my dad and my uncle. And for many years there was a very important ongoing learning process of reconciling her faith to certain family relationships. In the end, she played that one right.
In closing, I have 3 parting thoughts that will always be my major take-away lessons from Grandma.
“See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil.” The monkeys representing this saying have become part of our family lore, so much so that we even call our children monkeys.
Whether you drink wine or not, Celebrate a Happy Hour every day of your life.
And last, but not least, Make your own bed. And when you walk out of the room, take a moment to look back at what you’ve done, and make DAMN sure that you’ve made it right.
Bill Willbrandt
