Heaps Of Love

I have the perfect holiday planned. All of us together for the first time in years. There is a new baby in the family, and I have been planning my Christmas decor for months…literally. I finished all my shopping at the end of September. Christmas is the place I go in my mind to be a child again, to be happy in those brief moments before childhood is stolen from us like the Grinch reaching back down the chimney for the last crumb of celebration.  

Yesterday I didn’t feel well, but I woke up today and was much better…must have been the long flight I just took. I was almost out of time, the family would be together soon and today's job was simply to find poinsettias to fill the house. Big ones, white ones, or pale pink, none of the red, it simply doesn’t go with my well-obsessed burnished bronze color scheme.

When I was young I remember my grandparents meticulously planning the trip to the flower shop to pick up pre-ordered perfect poinsettias. It was always bitter cold in upstate NY at Christmas and they plotted how they would get them home and give them as gifts without the tropical flowers dying in the frost. After that, there was always a pizza ordered for dinner. I associated the two as an annual event, a celebration of special things, when in actuality the pizza parlor was probably right next to the florist. One easy meal before the hours and hours of holiday meal preparations and fruit cake baking. 

As today rolled by I noticed I wasn’t feeling well again and as any responsible Gen X person who is a baby boomer rising, according to all things astrological, I went and got a covid test. That thing lit up like a Christmas tree. Fuck….I use the word fuck in this time of holiday merriment because there is simply no other word that quantifies the situation…accept double fuck, or fuckity fuck fuck fuck….Anyway, here we are pivoting again. I feel like an expert at living a life on a swivel. 

Lately, though I have been thinking a lot about my grandparents. So it is not ironic on this, my poinsettia hunting day, they would be on my mind. They were experts at adjusting to the things life brought their way. My grandfather, a farmer turned railroad man, met my grandma in early January of 1929. He was immediately smitten but she was determined to have a bigger life and see the world. She wanted more than some chicken farmer could ever provide. She and her sister already had plans to leave upstate NY for California and that chicken farmer was in her rearview mirror before she ever left. 

Sounds good, a headstrong young woman chooses herself and goes off to see the world. I guess that would be today's Instagram quote card psychology. But she wrote to him every week, and I have the letters. That chicken farmer who she could not get off her mind, carved a place in her heart during a flirty snowball fight in front of the cafe she worked at last January. Now her letters came from hotels across the continent simply addressed to Howard Groff, Altamont, NY.

She wrote of hearing wolves howl or a group of locals looking for the lion that had been seen on the road. She saw a bear and knew she was now truly “in the wilds.” She went to a picture show for a dime and she and her sister made quite a sensation in any town, simply by being there. Grandma wasn't shy about telling him of all the men they met and how flirty her sister could be. Over time Grandma took a back seat to her sister's antics and “grew quieter, doing more of the looking on.”

Eventually, she signed her letters “yours” or “heaps of love”. She admits to being lonesome on the journey but when she finally arrives, Grandma speaks of California as: “One of the best destinations a person could ever have, I’m wondering why God didn’t make the whole world like California. And to think, the people who live here don't seem to appreciate it.”

A week later, she wrote of being lonesome again 

Howard, 

Even though I appear to be doing a lot, I haven’t lost the least bit of lonesomeness. I will tell you all about it someday. 

PS….  It’s just 3 weeks Sunday since we said “Goodbye.” It seems like 300 years.”

Then a letter came dated simply, Sunday night:

Dear Howard,

I wonder who's kissing you now? It is 10:15 and I am alone. Can you imagine a red headed girl alone in a city of 100,00 people? It is hard to confess but I know of one place I’d rather be….

On Jan 3, 1930, it was to be 121 days till she was in the arms of the chicken farmer once more. (she was counting) “By the time you get this it will be even less!” Grandma had found a way home. She determined she had seen “the best” and was ready to return east. Ruth, her sister, would stay behind, she wasn't done with the world yet.  Grandma, though, had changed her mind about life, “I guess you are a different kind of farmer, huh?” Ultimately it would take her 2 years to get back to the East Coast and when she did, she came with a child. 

Pivot.

But the chicken farmer always held a place for her, and now her young baby. Together they raised 3 children on that farm. By the time Mom was in Jr. High they decided to trade homes with someone who wanted the land. It was just too much and Grandma had a heart condition. They relocated to Schenectady and Grandpa became a railroad man. They filled their new brick bungalow with love and simple things. Grandpa still kept a garden, although he favored red geraniums now. 

This is the home of my childhood. In this place, you could always see their great love for one another. We all spent large amounts of time gathered at the kitchen table, little lace curtains blowing in the wind. Grandma liked to share the local gossip and grandpa passed the cookie tin around to keep us kids entertained while they chatted over coffee and cigarettes after lunch. If you ask any one of them, it was the happiest place they ever lived.

Yet my memories also weave through hospital cafeterias that sold blueberry pie, such a delicious pie for a hospital. We all remarked on that. A small consolation for being there at all. This table too held powerful love, with everyone gathered round; You could see it in his eyes across a metal table laden with pie and coffee while she slept upstairs in a doctor’s care…..He never married again. She was woven through him as well. Memories of her forever in his home, in his soul. Grandma set out to see the world and discovered it was right in front of her all along. It was that simple; Peace, happiness. It was as gentle as protecting a delicate flower from the cold, as beautiful as adapting in a storm. I guess if love plays a part, pivoting is easy.

So this is my plan. If I am able, I will bake some cookies and carefully organize the holiday menu we will all share once I can rejoin the festivities. Heck! with Instacart I can even have the ingredients left right at my door. I will sip hot tea or Theraflu, wrap presents and immerse myself in the beautiful childhood memories of Christmas at my grandparents’ house. I will dream of the Christmas I swear I saw Santa, even though Mom insists it was just her red wool car coat as she and Dad came home late from a Christmas Eve gathering with friends. (party pooper) And I smile as I remember all the years I gazed out the window of my room there searching for Santa’s reindeer in the sky. 

There is a parallel between my grandmother and the life I’ve led. I think she left me a road map. I will start here, at “lonesome.” and simply look to follow the love back home.

Swivel’s not so bad. And this time it comes with presents.

How did my poinsettia hunt go? Every place was sold out. Instead, I got 2 large white flowering Hellebore plants and sunny yellow pots to put them in. It is perfect. It is the cheer I need to heal.