Grandmas

Lou posted a really nice story about her grandmother today. It's worth a read. It also got me to remembering my grandma. I don't really have a lot of those kinds of memories of her.

My maternal grandmother was named Edith Elizabeth Wright. When I was 3 years old, she had a massive stroke that left her right side paralyzed. The stroke also affected the speech center of her brain and for the rest of her life, she was never able to speak clearly. Though I was still very small, I remember going with my mother to take Grandma to physical therapy. Grandpa hadn't retired yet, so we took her to her appointments. There was another man in there who would scream. One day as he was passing through the waiting area, I asked him why he screamed so much. "Does it hurt," I asked? "Yes," he responded. "Sometimes it hurts." The next day he gave me his little exercise ball that the therapist had given him.

The stroke happened in June of 1967. Sometime before that--I believe it had to be that same year, because I remember it so clearly--we went camping. Grandma and Grandpa had bought one of those pop-up campers. Dad had bought a tent, and we all went camping together at Lake Sam Rayburn. Grandpa liked working with wood, and had made me a little stove and a cradle. He'd made my brother a double Ferris wheel. I remember this because Rus got to bring his Ferris wheel, while I had to leave my things at home. To add insult to injury, he wouldn't let me play with his Ferris wheel. I had to play with the much smaller, cheap plastic toy Ferris wheel that was bought from the store.

Grandma and Grandpa also had a boat. They took my brother and me out fishing. Grandpa put the minnow on my little hook and told me to put it into the water. Having the patience of a three year old, I pulled my line out about every 10 seconds to see if I'd caught anything. Grandma told me to leave my minnow in the water for a long time, to give it time to grow up, she said.

"How will I know when it's grown," I asked?

"I'll tell you," said my grandpa. After what seemed like forever, Grandpa told my I could pull my line out. When I did, I was astounded to discover a big fish where my little fish had been! "How could it have grown so big that fast," I wondered? My mother says I screamed, threw the fish back into the water and tried to climb out the other side of the boat, but I don't remember that.

That is double special to me, because not only was it the first fish I caught, but it is also the only memory I have of my grandma before the stroke.

Grandma died when I was 14. Soon, Grandpa remarried. We weren't quite sure what we should call our step-grandmother. We didn't want to call her Grandma, because Grandma was Grandma, but it seemed disrespectful to call her Vivian. Finally, my sister just came right out and asked her, "What should we call you?"

"Just call me Granny, like the rest of my grandchildren do."
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