On Christmas Day, 1978, after seeing my mother, two brothers, and sister, I drove to my grandmother’s one-bedroom apartment on the Grand Concourse. It was near 176th Street, less than two miles from Yankee Stadium, my childhood hangout.
I offered to pick up and take my grandmother — I called her mama — to my mother’s house, but she said no, she didn’t feel like going out. She wanted to stay home but said I could come for a visit.
She answered the door and looked like she’d just gotten out of bed. She wore her house coat and slippers, though she had brushed her hair. She walked back into the bedroom where the small television played — I think it was a 13-inch black and white — but the sound was turned low.
It took a while for me to notice that she didn’t put up a tree.
She sat on a bed strewn with letters and envelopes. She explained she was going through her papers, which she did when she was especially sad. Those papers contained her wedding certificate, photos of her and her husband, my mother’s birth announcement, and more.
I asked her if I could make her something to eat. She said she wasn’t hungry, and besides, “I have to take care of this mess before Herman gets home … "
Her voice trailed off. Her face froze in time. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
My grandfather died a few months earlier of prostate cancer. My grandmother, who had spent more than four decades with the love of her life, wasn’t just crushed. She was lost.
I thought I should try to cheer her up, but it took me years to understand that wasn’t what she desired. She needed to be among her papers, memories, and tears because it was her way to feel close to her husband on Christmas Day.
I made a sandwich — I forgot what kind — cut it in half and took it to her.
“Boy, I said I don’t want no food,” she said.
I replied, “Just in case.”
We sat and talked about nothing important. When I left, I hugged my grandmother, a display of affection to which she was unaccustomed. She was South Carolina stoic. If she said, “That’s nice,” it might as well have been a big old kiss on the cheek.
My grandmother died in 2005. She suffered from dementia, and her memory betrayed her for the last seven years of her life in all but one way.
I had moved her to the area to get better care and be close to family. When I’d go see her in the nursing home she would often ask if I’d seen Herman and if I knew when he was coming home. I always said yes, I had, and he would be by in a minute.
That would make her smile and ask, “How ya doin’, Frank?”
Frank was her brother.
No matter. My grandfather’s memory stayed with her until the end. I told myself that when she remembered him, she also remembered how Christmas was special because he was in it.
I told myself his memory would always give her a Merry Christmas.
Ray Marcano’s column appears on these pages each Sunday. He can be reached at raymarcanoddn@gmail.com.
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