My grandmother was born on December 10, 1900. Her ancestors were Welsh, although I doubt she knew that. They came over in the 17th century. She did have a desire to remember the past. She collected names and dates and photographs, and lucky me I inherited those and traced the family tree.
We called her grandmother by her own request–not grandma or worst of all in her mind, granny. (I still remember my little cousin Jenny getting in trouble for that one!) The title “Grandmother” fit her because she was old school, not a cuddly granny-type. Her name was Margaret and as far as I know she never went by a nickname.
She died in 1977. I remember her voice, although barely. She always sent me $5 in a card for my birthday. She said she had so many grandchildren she couldn’t show favor, and I suppose she didn’t as far as I know. I also remember some of the things she said, not all of them nice. But in her defense she suffered from cancer during a time when there was little effective treatment available. Old people can be grouchy. Sometimes they have reason.
A few years after she died I had a dream. I was standing in front of her like I so often did for photographs. She was wearing her usual large fake pearl necklace and earrings and a homemade dress. She was an excellent seamstress, a skill I didn’t inherit. My mother told me my grandfather wouldn’t let her buy cheap jewelry but after he died she did. In my dream she lacked her usual stoic manners. She seemed regretful and told me that she loved me. I don’t remember her ever saying that to me when she was alive. She may have but I don’t remember it.
The kinds of things I remember her saying included overhearing her tell my mother (her daughter-in-law) that I was fat and that she needed to do something about that. She complained when we had an ant infestation in the house and feared she would wake up with them in her bed.
To me she seemed very proper, but that was probably a child’s perception as my dad’s cousin has told me about the fun Margaret and her siblings had playing cards and just having fun. A few years ago I saw a home movie where she sat in front of the Christmas tree to watch me open presents. That stunned me because I never remember my grandmother sitting on the floor! But there it was, proof than indeed she had!
My genealogy research has helped me to put her life in perspective. She had two sons serving in two different theaters during WWII, and they were so young! She and my grandfather once received word that my father was missing because his ship had been sunk in the Pacific. In fact, he had been transferred earlier to another ship but communication wasn’t fast back then and I can only imagine the worry!
Margaret’s own father was an alcoholic and wandered in and out of their lives when she was growing up. He continued this even after his children had their own families. My dad told me once he remembered as a boy finding his grandfather sleeping off a bender in the family bathtub. By the time I came along all that was old news but I have to wonder how much of it never left her.
Which brings me to my point. The dream made me forget the trivial stuff, the things that truly do not matter, the things that are better off forgotten, and the things I may or may not have remembered correctly and focus instead on the fact that Margaret did love me. It also served to remind me that I want to live so that when people think of me they remember a voice of love rather than that of crabbiness.
Do I believe she spoke to me from beyond the grave? Not really. But I do believe she spoke to me from the past–from my memories, and I believe that was a gift from God.
What voices from the past do you hear? My advice is to learn to listen to the voices that build you up and instruct you and to ignore the rest.
