Looking For Clues

You will remember, dear readers, that my uncle went into a nursing home last week.  He was never married or even in a relationship.  He lived with my grandparents, in their house, until they passed away; my grandmother in 1980 and my grandfather in 1999.  Then he lived alone in that house.  But, other than a couple of rooms, he never really made the house his own.  The living room and the pantry in particular were both times capsules and virtually unchanged since my grandmother passed away.  My grandfather got rid of her clothes, shoes and handbags when she died but bakeware and knick knacks remained as they were.

Now, we are in the process of looking at a houseful of stuff.  What is valuable, even if only sentimentally?  What is important and what is just the collective debris of years and years of family life?  My grandfather was a difficult man.  He was arrogant, entitled and a little bit paranoid.  I spent a lot of time in my adult life, asking why he didn't love me in the way I thought I should be loved.  I've finally made peace with all of that though.  My grandmother on the other hand, remains an enigma.

I was eleven when she passed away.  If you had asked me, when I was eleven, if I knew my grandmother, I would have told you, of course I did.  I'd sometimes stayed with my grandparents when my parents went to the movies.  I'd stayed overnight when my brother was born and again for several nights, a year later when he needed open heart surgery to repair a hole in his heart.  My grandmother took me to the store and helped me pick out an outfit for my newborn brother.  We sat on her front porch and she taught me to braid.  We were there for Christmas and Easter and summer cookouts.

And yet now as an adult, I realize I didn't know her at all.  I spent time at her house, yes, but never a lot.  I couldn't just ever walk in her door even though we lived right next door in the other side of a duplex.   My kids have always been able to walk right into both my mother's and my mother-in-law's houses.  When my grandmother first passed away, several of her friends told my mother she absolutely adored my brother and I.  

This was surprising somehow. There was no doubt she cared about us but she had never been overly demonstrative or affectionate.  Perhaps that's a cultural thing. My great grandparents came from Sweden.  The Swedes aren't known for being hugely emotional.  Maybe it was my grandfather, who I suspect was jealous and wanted to keep my grandmother to himself.  My dad and my uncle both have issues with anxiety and depression and I think she may have too.

So, I find I have endless speculations about my grandmother and no one to ask.  My dad has dementia and has lost almost all of his language skills.  I'm not even sure he'd know who I was asking about or even who was asking.  My uncle has never been intuitive about people and conversations with him are super awkward.  He perseverates.  He was in the hospital back in January.  My brother, who has been handling his financial affairs, tried to start a conversation about funeral arrangements.  My uncle listened for about 10 seconds then interrupted, "Did you bring my newspapers?  I can't eat without reading the paper." He wasn't just changing the subject on a difficult topic.  This happens with most of his conversations.

I look at my grandmother's stuff. I pick up knick knacks and bakeware.  I grabbed her long expired driver's license.  I hold keys to her luggage and the the luggage itself.  I spend a long time looking at a ring stashed at the back of a drawer.  My grandfather gave almost all of my grandmother's jewelry away and not to me) when she died, but this ring was not in her jewelry box.  Was it randomly thrown in a drawer and forgotten or was it hidden?  A little research tells me that this particular ring was often used as an engagement ring.  Was there somebody before my grandfather? These scenarios intrigue me unfortunately,  every question I ask leads only to more questions.

 Still, these material items are all I have.  I approach them like the oracle at Delphi, hoping for a vibration or an energy or better yet, a letter stashed between the pages of a candy cookbook.  What made her happy?  What did she like and what was she like?  What secrets did she keep that would have been impossible for eleven-year-old me to understand or even realize she might have had?  What did she think, and I suppose, what did she think about me?