I’ve decided that Joanie was a woman of mystery. Her name
wasn’t even Joanie. Nor Joanne like her friends called her, or Mimi as her
second grandmother name somehow given to her by her other set of grandchildren.
Her name is Betty Joan. I don’t know how all those names got to be but I think
she just liked to mix it up.
It’s weird when someone you’ve known all of your life,
before you could even know anything, is gone. It’s like a piece out of your
foundation has chipped off and it’s not as comfortable and stable and right as
it used to be.
Since I’ve had kids. And kids who are, well, ‘spirited’,
I’ve been told by my mother, who likes to choose moments of my deepest despair
in parenting to remind me that she didn’t wait four years to have my younger
sister because she was enjoying her alone time with me, but rather because she
couldn’t decide if she could handle another terrible child, a story of my
grandmother’s first disciplinary moment with me. Joanie, who had never spanked
my mom and aunt (because they were apparently perfect) and who didn’t believe
in spankings anyway, had me in one aisle of the grocery store while my mom was
in the other. Apparently I was acting out and likely screaming at being
deprived some unnaturally colored breakfast cereal, and in a moment of calm my
mother overheard her say sharply to me “Emily, if you don’t quit misbehaving
I’m going to have your mother spank you!”
She was a real civil servant and political activist. When I
asked her who she was going to vote for in the Presidential election she said
“I vote Democrat and George will vote Republican so we’re not gonna go and
we’ll just cancel each other out.”
She was feisty too. She’d give this look, “The look,” the one that,
based on old photographs, she’d been perfecting for most of her life and the
one that she’s passed on to her daughters and granddaughters.
There was a story told to me only in the past year that
really showed her…quiet strength… My grandfather was on the road selling auto
parts and my grandmother was at home with two babies. When Grandfather came
home and was displeased in the lack of fastidious housecleaning (namely dust on
the bedroom dresser), Joanie, almost certainly, gave him ‘the look,’ walked to
the closet and took out the vacuum cleaner, as only a devoted housewife would
do, yanked the dustbin off and proceeded to shower the entire bedroom in dirt
and dust and said "You want to see dust? I'll show you dust." I don’t think Grandfather ever mentioned her cleaning habits again.
I guess I got my love of entertaining and parties and fancy
things from her. She wasn’t a gourmet cook but she was a good cook and
everyone loved her pot roast and her poppy seed chicken. The recipe relaxed
with time. 3 cups of cooked chicken, chopped gave way to canned. 1 can cream of
mushroom was substituted for whatever cream of soup she had in the pantry, a
random spice substituted for poppy seeds and a leftover sprinkling of ritz
crackers, but somehow it was still just as good. She’d always have some kind of
fruit salad that was 90 % cool whip, but what kid doesn’t love that. She’d just
kinda throw some stuff together and that’s just what she’d say she did.
For better or worse I don’t think she really cared that much
about impressing people. She’d act like it was important-she always dressed
well and claimed the purses she got at yard sales and shoes she got at “the
thrift” were designer. She just was who she was. Unapologetically. I remember
the story she’d tell when before she had kids and “nobody had any money” she
and her friend Betty wanted to have a dinner party and so they were looking in the
fridge to see what they could fix and they found some leftover mashed potatoes.
So the culinary geniuses decided to roll the mashed potatoes into balls, stick
some parsley in the top and serve them up on a silver platter. She’d get so
tickled and you couldn’t help but laugh with her. I loved those times with her
telling some self-deprecating story and we’d just laugh until we cried. My mom
and aunt, clutching their stomachs, Joanie trying to wheeze out the end of the
story with her head thrown back and tears running down her face. I wish she was
here now and we could all laugh together, clutching our stomachs, living the moments
where time didn’t matter.
Oh she loved me so much. More than I deserved. I could never
do wrong in her eyes, (you know, besides that incident in the grocery store)
and every time she saw me she’d say “you’re such a beauty. You can do anything.
You could be a model you know.” I’d laugh and think about what an unrealistic
view of a model she has, but it made you feel good. Not all grandmothers love
and dote on her grandchildren like she did and selfishly I’m gonna miss that.
She loved my husband, “He’s a real catch” she’d always say, “but you’re a real
catch too.” She loved my dumb dogs, and she loved my children. She wasn’t
everyone’s biggest fan but if she loved you, you were. And she loved a lot of
people. Jack was “somethin’ special” and I know she loved the times this last
year when he’d sneak back to her room, hop on her big ol’ bed and watch tv with
her. I’ll never forget just after Harper was born and she came over, but
“didn’t want to give Harper too much attention because she didn’t want “her
Jack” to get jealous, and he was jumping around on the bed and she just hopped
right up there and started bouncing and laughing away. The two of them, bodies
old and young, but both alive, you know, one in spirit.
She was still going strong even at the end. A veritable
social butterfly who loved her people. I can’t drive past a garage sale or host
a party without thinking of her. She was dearly loved and she loved dearly and
fiercely. We’re all still missing our number 1 fan.
