Two Grandmothers

I didn't know my grandfathers; they both died before I was born. Maybe that's one reason the influence of my grandmothers on my formation was so strong.

I remember more about about my mother's mother, whom we called Grandma. Some of my earliest memories are of her when I was 3 to 5 years old and she lived with us, first in Phoenix, then moving with us to Silver Spring, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. We lived in an apartment on the ground floor of a modest, low-rise building that still stands more than 60 years later. Grandma and I shared a bedroom. We had twin beds, and at night after my mother tucked me in I would climb in bed with Grandma.

She had a feather bed, a type of mattress topper. Snuggled into her arms and the feather bed, I was in heaven. My mother did not approve -- I was supposed to be in my own bed -- so I also had the delicious sense of risk.

Before we moved back to Phoenix and I started first grade, Grandma returned to her home in Berryville, Arkansas, and my mother and I visited her in the summers. My childhood impressions of her changed from grandmotherly and sweet to old and cranky. She complained a lot. No doubt she was developing the infirmities that eventually would result in my mother's moving her to Phoenix to live with us, around the time I started high school.

We called my father's mother Mamie, the name her first grandchild had given her. She lived near Yucca Valley, California, which is still a small town in the Mojave Desert. Mamie was different, not just from Grandma but from every other woman I knew. Though I never doubted that she adored me, I wasn't close to her, probably because she was quiet and introverted, like me. Mamie lived with her longtime friend Martha, who also adored me and was more extroverted.

Mamie and Martha shared a strong devotion to religious beliefs that gave their lives structure and purpose. To my middle-class, 1960s family, they were weird -- annoying to my mother and fascinating to me. They frequently fasted, taking nothing but water, sometimes for several weeks. When they weren't fasting, they were vegetarians, another weirdness in those days. They also hosted visitors who came to fast and stayed in a small cabin that they built themselves. There's a picture in my mind of Mamie mixing and pouring cement, but I'm not sure that I ever really saw her at work.

Contrasts

Grandma's skin and body were soft, and she had long, silky, white hair that she wound into a bun on top of her head. She had dentures, which sometimes I would see in the glass of water where she stored them. She had a tremor, which made her jaw and her handwriting shake. She enjoyed eating sweets but complained that she had "sugar diabetes."

Mamie's body was lean and muscular. She wore her curly, dark gray hair short. She was usually in motion with an air of serenity, always smiling, her eyes bright and laughing.

I don't know when I became conscious of the vow I made sometime during those formative years: I will be like one, not like the other. With only childhood and adolescent perceptions informing me, I knew nothing about the history, strengths, and limitations that made each woman the whole, complex person she was.

Over the years of my adulthood, my memories of my grandmothers have softened and expanded, as I have come to know and appreciate more of life and of their lives. For instance, when Grandma lived with us in Phoenix during my high school years, she took over all the daily dish washing. She said she enjoyed it, and that was fine with me because otherwise the job would have been mine. Now I understand that this was her contribution to our household, something she initiated and did consistently because it was important to her.

I've also come to understand why Mamie's strong religious values might have annoyed her adult children. When she decided something based on her beliefs, she dug in and did what she thought was right, even when it involved other people who might not agree.

But the vow I made unconsciously has stayed with me, and I've continued to notice women older than I am and, I confess, to judge them: I want to be like her, not like her. This has influenced many of my decisions, especially as I am now in the stage of life that my grandmothers were in when I formed my impressions of them.

I am so grateful to both of my grandmothers for showing me the power of the choices I make every day.