Family heirlooms
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
When my grandmother died, I already was living in California — a long way away from Kansas. My parents were in Oregon — an equally formidable distance. Only my father made the pilgrimage back to Ramona to help lay his mother's body to rest.
He was here. He was gone again. And it was his sister who tied up the loose ends of their mother's life. My dad was not exactly one for keepsakes and old things weren't high on his list of valuables. That said, you would know he wasn't exactly standing in line, putting in dibs, for what little was left of Grandma's things.
I did receive my grandmother's wedding dress. She'd given it to me long before she died but I hesitated to claim such a precious heirloom. But Gram was insistent that I have this dress, which I'd worn on a couple of occasions during my college days, and her daughter made sure it came into my hands — although it's quite possible she would have cherished this herself. That dress is now on display in the Dirt Gambler's Museum in Ramona! Who would have predicted that?
It's a mystery to me how belongings in a loved one's house become precious to one or another of their kin. It's strange, what things we remember, and which ones are long forgotten. In my grandmother's house, the thing I remembered most was her rocking chair. It stood between the front door and the wood stove. I think there was a pad on the seat, but I can't remember for sure. Usually Gram was all the padding required. Leah wasn't exactly a sit-down kind of person; but when she did, whatever grandchildren were around would dive for her lap. Since I was the oldest, I remember learning to share Grandma's lap with my cousin Carolyn.
My grandmother wasn't a story-telling kind of grandma. I'm sure the only times she sat down were when she was exhausted. One of the things we loved to see, as we sat on Grandma's lap, was her false teeth. We'd beg and plead and beg some more, "Let us see your teeth, Gram," and usually, eventually, she'd drop her upper plate of false teeth and wiggle them around with her tongue and we would howl with delight. We couldn't understand at all how Gram could do this! Our teeth didn't fall down and wiggle around like that — it was the next best thing to a magic show.
By the time my sister and I came back to Ramona and bought the little tumble-down house on Main Street, Gram had been gone for more than 20 years. One day Aunt Naomi sent me to the basement to get something for her and what should I stumble over but Gram's rocking chair. I sat down in it and let the memories flood over me. I remembered the giggles, the pushing for center stage on Grandma's lap, the softness of her body, the crookedness of her fingers, how the rungs on the back of that chair would dig into my skinny frame as a kid when I sat in the chair alone. Oh, how I loved that rocker! It was like visiting an old friend, a long-ago time, when Grandma's lap had been my heart's home.
This weekend my cousins were in town, closing down their mother's home, sorting and dividing the goods, trying to figure out who wants what and what should go where. Because of our involvement in their mother's life — especially the past five years we've lived here in Ramona — my cousins asked my sister if there was anything of Naomi's belongings we might want. It's probably a good thing I wasn't there — it's always been hard for me to say what I want right out loud; but my sister was there and she said, "Pat would love Grandma's rocking chair that's down in the basement."
My bravery to even entertain the desire for such a family heirloom was fueled by the fact that by the time these younger cousins of mine were born into the family, our grandparents had moved to the city and Grandma's rocking chair had been relegated to her basement. Perhaps their attachment was not so strong as mine! I knew their mother loved that chair as much as I did and what a lovely gesture when her children said, "Tell Pat we want her to have Grandma's rocker."
Well, it's another day in the country and Grandma's rocker is staying in Ramona a while longer. I will fetch it today, sit myself down in it, and give thanks for the on-going miracle of life, laughter, and a loving family.
