A Long Overdue “To Do”

I write a lot of “to do” lists. They’re pretty much always the same—and I pretty much almost always still forget, or neglect, to do half of the things on it. But I still get a little thrill when I draw a line through one of them, marking it off: Yoga. Laundry.

One that I haven’t marked off in far too long is one that makes the top of the list nearly every time. That “to do” is “Write Grandma E”—that is, my Grandma Exckhardt, my mother’s mother. Aside from the fact that I’ve run out of stationary for the first time in a decade, I don’t have one good reason to not mark this off the list every time. Especially since every time I do mark that off the list, and drop that letter in the mail, I feel really happy.

This evening, while on the phone with my dad, he rather politely reminded me of this neglect, hinting that maybe I hadn’t been in touch with Grandma recently, and that maybe, just maybe, that might hurt her feelings. My heart lurched as soon as I realized he was right: When was the last time I had written Grandma?

It’s been months.

When we got off the phone I paced around my kitchen for a minute, feeling awful. Should I call now? But no, it’s too late—I’ll probably just wake her up. Then I thought, I’ll write her a letter right now. I’ll mail it tomorrow; she should get it by Saturday.

This plan didn’t seem good enough, either, so I vowed to myself that I’d call tomorrow, either on my lunch break or as soon as I got home from work.

Whether your line of thought right now is either “Wow, calm down” or “Geez, can’t you even take the time to call your own grandmother?”—I don’t really blame you for either. On the one hand: Calm down. I can rectify this. On the other: Can’t I take the time to call my own grandmother?

I’m bad at keeping in touch. If it weren’t for Facebook and email, I’m sure plenty of people would forget I even exist. I’m that bad.

But: my grandma doesn’t use the Internet. She also doesn’t live in Chicago. She lives in Muncie, Indiana, and she and my grandpa spend the winters in Florida with my aunt. Hence, the importance of the letters or phone calls. Neither of which I’ve been doing.

You should know something about my Grandma E: She is thoughtful.

And when I say thoughtful, I mean thoughtful. One year I told her how good the birthday cake she made for my party was, and she made the exact same cake the following year. Based on one offhand comment! Because she knows how much I love devilled eggs—and hers in particular—she makes some every single time she knows she’s going to see me. Every time. Even if she’s not hosting the get together. She does it because she knows I love them. She has done this for years.

There’s nothing that’ll really make you feel worse than acting less than thoughtful to a person who is always thoughtful to you. Know what I mean?

But it’s more than that. Because there’s another thing you should know about my Grandma E: my mother adored her.

Well, duh—that’s her mother. But, whenever my mom talked about her, whenever my mom was around her, even as a kid, I could feel not only the love between them, but also the respect that my mother had for her. They had a special bond, perhaps not unlike the bond I felt with my mom.

Sick Day

When I was little, staying home from school sick typically meant spending the day at Grandma Hamm’s. Mom would drop me off on her way to school, and then it’d be a day at Grandma’s until she’d be back around 4 to bring me home.

I both loved and hated this. Loved, because a sick day at Grandma’s meant I could lay in her bed and read old Nancy Drew novels cover to cover, interrupted only by Grandma checking on me every so often. I hated it for silly reasons that seemed incredibly not silly to my seven-, eight-, or nine-year-old self: Grandma always had Robitussin cough drops in awful flavors, unlike the Luden’s cherry cough drops I preferred, that basically just tasted like candy and did absolutely nothing. I was convinced she’d had the same bag of cough drops for decades, because of the way the paper would stick to the cough drop as if the two things were actually merging together. I’d force myself not to make a face as I unwrapped the cough drop and slowly place it in my mouth, because Grandma would be watching, and as soon as I’d make a face, she’d scoff, “Oh, it’s not that bad” and I’d immediately feel ridiculous and sulk into my book for the next half hour. Nothing, and I mean nothing, was worse than a rebuke from Grandma Hamm. Which was probably why I typically did everything possible to avoid a rebuke at all costs, even when sick. So I’d choke on the cough drop and mind my own business until Mom came to get me after school.

It was understood that if either my brother or me were out of school sick, it was the other one’s responsibility to collect the homework, which was particularly annoying if it required lugging one or more of my brother’s books, in addition to mine, home from school. Most days, we rode the bus, but if one of us had a sick day at Grandma’s, it was more likely that Mom would pick the other one up from school. When the tables were turned, and Jay had been sick at Grandma’s all day, I’d run into Grandma’s, feeling smug that I was the healthy one, knowing Grandma would be excited to see me, unlike Mom, who would often be cranky and “so stressed out” that she didn’t seem to be as delighted by me as I felt was necessary.

But although there was something special, and somewhat sacred, about those sick days at Grandma’s, there was one sick day from my childhood that I’ve always remembered quite vividly, at least in part.

It was my second day in a row having to stay home from school, and I had a fever. For whatever reason, my mom decided to stay home with me that day. I felt miserable, and my whole body, particularly my legs, ached and ached. I was probably whining about it. I mean, who am I kidding—I was most certainly whining about it.

But that day, I wasn't told to quit complaining, or to toughen up. Instead, Mom sat on the couch with me, my legs propped on her lap, and we watched The Sound of Music together.

That’s it: The part of the day I remember vividly. It’s not much, but it’s enough.

As an adult, it’s different. You can’t whine to your mom when your body aches from a fever. Your parents don’t ultimately make the decision about whether or not you go to school (work) when you’re sick, or when it’s the right time to go back. In college, when I first started having to deal with the reality of becoming an adult and taking care of myself, being sick also brought this strange sort of homesickness along with it. It wasn't just that I wanted to go home—I wanted to go back in time, when Mom or Grandma (or both) were still there to take care of me.

I think about mom, and Grandma Hamm, often when I’m sick. At 27, I’m a little too old to be whining and wishing I had a parent or grandparent to take care of me when I’m not feeling well. That’s for sure.

But I guess it’ll never change that every time I’m sick, there’s a little part of me that will always think of, if only for a moment, Nancy Drew and The Sound of Music.

Hamm Family Photos

Jay undertook the major project of scanning some old family photos and putting together a slideshow in memory of our grandparents--our grandpa passed away this February, our grandma 13 years ago as of tomorrow--and some of these photos are too badass not to show off.

Here, Grandpa milking a cow. To state the obvious. And here are two of Grandma Hamm:



Clearly, becoming a cat lady was inevitable. It's in the Hamm genes.