Grandma has been on mind a lot lately. She and Aunt Anita pop into my mind at unexpected times. Standing by the kitchen window and peeling carrots and parsnips, I wonder if they cooked with parsnips themselves. Putting apples into the bowl on the hutch, I remember Anita’s pies and her disapproval of me heating her Thanksgiving apple pie before serving because the apples filling oozed out from the heat. These are the types of memories that most people have of their loved ones, memories evoked by a dish or a smell, by the slant of light across the floor, or the breeze through the porch screens.
My feelings have been more intense lately. I have to stop myself from asking my mother how my grandmother is, or whether she’s spoken to my aunt, both gone from this earth. Maybe it is just the turn of seasons, the approach of the holidays, and the earth turning away from the light, forcing me to become introspective and sometimes sad.
Or may it’s turning 49. I have a small black and white photo of my grandmother seated at the kitchen table with a birthday cake in front of her. You can see a peek of it on the bottom right of the collage above. On the back of the photo, is her written in her handwriting, “49 – a half a century - Ugh!” It echoes my sentiments exactly. How can I be almsot half a century? How can I ever be as old as my grandmother?
My grandmother had many masks. She was a strong mother and wife, and vocal in her opinions. She was tough and ruthless at times, and also rampant with anxieties. She was everything a grandmother should be, always loving but outspoken in her disapproval of new ventures, anything risky, anything strange. She was a controlling mother, never fair in her allotment of love, allowing intimacy with my aunt in exchange for a life of servitude, holding my mother at arm’s length, allowing the older uncle to be in charge, treating the youngest like a child all his life.
But today I just miss them, plain and simple. I miss entering their dark, overly large, Victorian house with the huge oak door filled with a massive pane of glass and gathered curtains, the green glass chandelier, and the smell of mustiness and cleaning products. I miss the living room, the big green chair you sank into and the ottoman for your feet. I miss knowing that the collection of paperweights would always remain on the cocktail table and the photo display of wedding parties, my own included, always grace the top of the baby grand piano. I miss knowing where the cookies were kept and the smell of raisins and Chiclets when you opened the dishtowel drawer. I miss the way life came to a screeching halt when you walked in to their house and the minutiae of aches and pains and recipes and squirrels in the attic were the focus of their lives.
Last night I was talking to my mother on the phone. It was Saturday night and with neither of us having a place to go or anything to do, she was in a garrulous mood. We somehow started talking about the state of our freezers and how crammed they were, a conversation only a mother and daughter would share. I admitted to buying a piece of steak at the store because I forgot to defrost the one I had, one of probably three in my freezer. She recounted a story of how my grandmother used to do the same thing, ending up once, after defrosting the freezer, with a count of 56 pork chops in the freezer. The upstairs freezer. The story was cute, but as my mother spoke, I was somewhere in outer space, viewing us with a third eye, hearing my mother’s voice talking about Cleveland Court and her family, and I was seized with the loss of her, with the knowledge that at 79 I could probably count her remaining years, and my stomach clenched and my voice thickened and all I can respond was “uh-huh”.
I don’t mind being who I am. Age is just a number, and whatever complaints I have are due to disregard of my health, not from growing older. What I miss is having several generations of older people around me. I miss most of all having the voices of the elderly, silly and piquant, the very voices that alternately bored me and soothed me when I was young. Especially older men. Where have they all gone? I have no older male relatives left, waiting to pinch my cheek, call me by a made up name, and hand me a dollar on the sly. I miss hearing the laughter and squabbles of my great aunts and uncles and my grandparents around a table filled with the remains of dinner and cups of tea and rich cakes baked by their hands. I miss their lapses in Italian when the talk turns to divorce or money, and then the way my grandmother’s cheeks flush when she enjoys a risqué joke.
And I miss that solid, established wall of middle-aged men, resplendent in ties and suits, my parents’ friends and relatives, the ones who wore the mantle of their professions so gravely on their shoulders: doctors, lawyers, salesmen, clerks, it didn’t matter. Their solidity and responsibility drew me in. Nothing terrible could happen to me when they were in control, even on New Year’s Eve when my oldest sister thought someone was in the backyard, and my parents and all their friends came home with baseball bats to roust the enigma of an intruder. I long to see them again all dressed up, the women in skirts that flared and embroidered sweaters, their hair freshly done and hardened into place with Aqua-Net. I miss my father coming downstairs, dressed up in his suit and tie, shoes shined, and in a good mood with a whistle on his lips for my mother.
There are few generations left between myself and mortality. There are no older men in shoulder-padded suits and red silk ties that I can turn to. The elderly at my table have dwindled to two. My children’s great aunts and uncles are seen infrequently, guests at weddings and graduation parties. They are busy with their children and grandchildren and I don’t think they carry singles in their breast pockets for tipping little kids. There’s no one left to call when the storm drains back up, no one left to call for advice when a cake doesn’t rise, no one left to teach me how to crochet.
Instead there is a noisy, fussy bunch of children underfoot. Little knots of grubby hands and loud voices and the aroma of Play-do and adolescent angst fill my rooms at the holidays rather than Jean Nate and Tigress. I miss the balance of the generations, but I realize that my sisters and I have become “the aunts”, the sometimes crotchety, sometimes indulgent, older relatives who cook and bake and spout unasked for advice. Our husbands are the suits, the towers of strength and dynamos who come home from work and can tickle a kid into submission. We are the extended family, the givers of holidays and bakers of cookies, the houses to escape to when our own are over crowded, too noisy, or parents too mean. I remind myself of that when the children are sulking on the floor because they wouldn’t willingly give up their chairs to an adult. I remind myself of that when they all disappear upstairs when it’s time to clear the table and wash the dishes. I remind myself of that when they all hover us, stand between us while we try to talk, run through the room one too many times, and in general make a nuisance of themselves when my sisters and I just want a half hour alone to drink a cup of tea and gossip. It’s then that I wish we had all learned Italian. It is then that I remember my grandmother and my aunt scolding us for not helping my mother after Thanksgiving dinner. It is then that I remember them standing at the sink for hours washing the dishes. It is then that I see the continuum of life and the span of generations touching hands. It is then that I remind myself to get some singles at the bank.
This painting is another in the series of Kitchen Art, or I'm Too Busy to Go Anywhere & Paint series. It's fun to go into the kitchen and drag out some interesting packages. It really gives you an appreciation for graphic design. 
