Gramma's General Store

“Hi Gramma!” I hollered breathlessly as I raced my siblings to my grandparents’ bedroom.  Every Saturday we visited my Gramma and Grampa and every Saturday Gramma laid out three goody piles on their bed; one for my brother, one for my sister and one for me. My grandmother owned a general store when I was very small, it was the mid-1970s. 

Gramma would take us up town to check on store business and my siblings and I would feel very special when she told us we could pick out any item from the bottom shelf of her store.  She gave us almost anything we wanted but we were not allowed to pick a toy higher than the lower shelf.  We wished to take one of the big stuffed animals from the top shelf that was off limits.  I would look at that shelf and wonder if we would ever get to pick anything we wanted in the whole store; my "want monster" was strong back then...but I kept it quiet.

Christmas

At Christmas time, my mother would place on the mantel, two plastic Santa and reindeer sleigh decorations that came from Gramma’s store.  There were plastic presents with holes in the bottom that stuck into a bed of plastic holly leaves in the back of each Santa sleigh.  Even Santa himself sat atop the leaves with a holly twig up his bottom.  That made my brother and sister and I snicker with naughty pleasure.

We loved to play with that sleigh every Christmas.  We would remove the presents and Santa from his bed of holly and play with them.  When we were done, we would put plastic Santa in his sleigh back up on the mantel to let him quietly resume being the decoration he was meant to be for the rest of the Christmas season.

Gramma's Generosity

After Gramma sold her store, she would take my siblings and I up town to the drug store to buy penny candy.  Gramma was very generous with sweets to our childish delight and to my mother’s disdain.  We actually walked to the drug store with Gramma because it was close to their home and she interacted with us more than before because there was no store business to attend to.  It was fun to walk with Gramma and it was her pleasure to watch us shop.

My grandmother was always smiling at us.  She was never cross.  In fact, we could do no wrong in her eyes, especially my brother.  My brother was greedy and always wanted more, it made me angry because Grandma gave us so many nice things and she was always patient and kind, even when my brother would act like a spoiled brat.  I thought he should keep his "want monster" quiet. 

I remember showing Gramma my first sewing project of a pig pillow. It was a very crude design of my own making with blue and white stripes and a tail made out of a forest green pipe cleaner that I glued between the stitches on the pig’s rump.

 I used a purple marker to draw an eye, a mouth and an ear on my pig. The navy blue stitching from the thread my mother let me use, showed clearly on the edges of my most unusual pig.  I thought it was beautiful and as I snuggled with Grandma, watching her inspect my work, I felt her approval though her face betrayed little. I could tell that she too thought it was beautiful but I remained quiet.

Easter

I have fond memories of going to my Grandparents’ house for Easter.  Gramma would make a big meal for all of us.  In the vivid recesses of my mind, I can still smell the baked ham wafting through the house as I take a seat at the dinner table. I remember a painting on the wall of their

dining room that had an old man sitting at a wooden table, head bent over his hands in what appeared to be prayer with the meager fare of a loaf of bread, a bowl of soup and a thick book with glasses folded atop it. His surroundings were meager, like his meal. It feels warm and I am happy in that quiet memory.

Gramma's Cancer 

In 1976, my grandmother was diagnosed with Cancer; I was in third grade.  It scared me.  My Grandmother became very limited with her activities. There was no Easter dinner that year.  Soon, she no longer walked with us up town to the drug store to buy our penny candy treats.  Her hair fell out and she started wearing a turban on her head.  There were no more goody piles on the bed

 when we ran in to visit her; she gave us money instead. We would buy our trinkets with Dad now after church on Sunday at the local Red Owl shopping mall.  Little by little, the warm picture of that time began to fog over and I worried...would I get cancer? But I stayed quiet.

Christmas Eve

My grandparents always came to our house for Christmas Eve.  I took on an ambitious sewing project that year, buoyed up by Gramma’s reaction to my pig pillow! I was determined to make it the best Christmas Eve ever for Gramma! I worked hard to create reindeer costumes for my sister and me.  I crudely measured the material around my torso and did the same for my sister to get a snug fitting reindeer body we could both pull on over our clothes.  I then went through my clothes drawer to find brown pants and a cream/brown shirt.  I used cardboard paper towel tubes for antlers and put a red pompom on the end of my nose to transform me into Rudolph!

 I taped cotton balls to my brother's face to make a beard and mustache. I had him wear dark pants, a red stocking cap and his red puffy down jacket to transform him into Santa Claus!   I used string to tie our plastic red sled to both me and my sister’s middle so that we could pull the sled like proper reindeer.  We loaded the presents for the adults into the sled that very special Christmas Eve and my sister and I pulled the sled with my little brother in it out into the living room to deliver the presents.  Gramma’s eyes sparkled with delight as she laughed and clasped her hands along with everyone else! I just smiled behind my mask...quietly.

Mononucleosis

The day after Christmas I got sick.  Days went by and I became even sicker.  I thought about Gramma and I worried.  My mother took me to the doctor.  The doctor looked at the back of my throat and then ran out to get another doctor.  This couldn’t be good.  I was really worried now.  The doctors talked back and forth to each other about the fiendish display they were observing in the back of my throat while my mother sat placidly nearby.  Finally, the doctor gave a diagnosis to my mother, “...Mononucleosis!” (Mono-nuke-lee-oh-sis) he proclaimed.  Alarm bells went off inside my head!  This was it, I was going to die; I must be, the name of the disease was longer than the alphabet!  I was terrified.  I thought of Gramma and her cancer but...I stayed quiet.

Without a word of explanation to me, my mother and I left the doctor’s office and I spent the next month in bed or on the couch watching a popular game show called the "Price is Right" on our black and white television.  My siblings brought home my school work and one day held a special Kid’s Day in my honor.  We would every so often celebrate this day since there was a Mother’s day and a Father’s day but no Kid’s day.  We thought Kids deserved a day too. We celebrated amongst ourselves by wrapping up items in Kleenex tissues from our trove of personal treasures and offering them to each other as gifts.  On this particular day (the one in my honor) my siblings were extra generous, my brother didn’t wrap up a tiny something, he wrapped up a big something, his stuffed Panda bear!  That took a lot of Kleenex!  Oh boy, I was going to die.  Everyone knew it but they just didn’t want to tell me!  I would die and then my brother would get his Panda back.  It could be the only explanation but I kept quiet.