Saying Goodbye

My Grandma and Grandpa Ferguson have always been such a big part of my life that my earliest memories of my childhood are a heavy mix of their house and mine.  I’m not talking about the big stuff, like Christmases and birthdays, but the little things, the things that we seem to forget about as time wears on.  Red geraniums, the upholstery shop, the brown davenport, the front porch, the whiskey barrel around the light pole, ants dancing on pink flowers-those types of things that seem so insignificant that your mind forgets to remember them until something big happens. Like this.

I had the great pleasure of spending much of my life growing up on Mill Street across the street and two houses down from my grandparents.  Going there wasn’t a treat, it was commonplace.  I ate toast at grandma’s table while she drank her coffee with creamer and sweet and low before I caught the bus.  Even before then I can remember sleeping over on her pullout couch with the feather pillows and fresh pillowcases in one of grandpa’s white t shirts watching things like Walker Texas Ranger and the Miss United States Pageant while eating her homemade popcorn.

Grandma was the perfect combination of tough and tender, strong and sweet.  She was a woman who seemed to tower over almost everyone, not just physically, but in personality as well.  I loved her so much and thought she was not only endearing, but a mystery.  I couldn’t figure out why she kept Little Debbies in her dishwasher or why she kept a butter knife in all of her door jambs.  Grandma always called outside “outdoors”.  She called her couch a “davenport”.  She had a china cabinet full of dishes and exciting things that I’m not sure she ever used.  She had Tupperware cups with handles by her sink that grandpa drank cold water out of when he came in from doing work outside.  She used the same cups to rinse my hair when she washed “my head” in the sink.

My grandparents were great friends and neighbors.  They had keys to their neighbor’s homes hanging by their back door.  They always had visitors; they gave people rides. They took care of people. Grandma kept chocolate pudding pops in the deep freeze in the shop. There were air compressors and material I’d weave through to get there. There was an ancient refrigerator by the door and a creepy illustration of a leg in a cauldron hanging above the telephone. They were the only people I knew who had a telephone in a building besides their house.  And the way Grandma answered the phone...

Once I got a little older, Grandma and Grandpa moved to Stimpson Road, and just like the green house on Mill Street, new memories were made almost instantly.  We knew all of their neighbors and they always seemed to have visitors, just like in town.  I loved playing in the outbuildings, especially the pea stone outside of the granary.  We worked in their garden, or rather I watched as they both dug potato hills, choosing the best ones.  They painstakingly plucked tomato bugs off their plants and put them in coffee cans, and then they would burn the pests.  They had a tire swing at the house in town by Cricket’s grave, but at the new house, there was an upgrade- a glider.  Grandma loved to cook, to garden, to gripe at grandpa, and I was sure she loved nothing more than her grandkids.

But, as I got older, my interest and the use of my time changed, as it does for anyone.  I was lucky because I worked at Grandma’s favorite grocery store, Ben’s Supermarket. Every Sunday I could, I would come over for my hour lunch break and sit with Grandma and Grandpa.  Sometimes we’d have Spaghettios, Koegel's viennas, and chips, other times I’d bring something from the deli that they both liked.  But, just like everyone else, I grew up and I moved away to start college and a new life. During that time I probably didn’t value my grandparents the way I should have and I regret that greatly.

But, like some do, I came back and just a couple of weeks before I got married, my grandparents whose homes were second ones to me, made their home in an addition at my mom’s house.  I got to enjoy the company of Grandma and Grandpa Ferguson again the way I did when I was small.  Then, when I welcomed my first daughter, nothing brought back those memories of the house in town and the farm more than watching my grandparents cradle and play with my daughter.  Grandpa would sing and play his harmonica or kazoo while grandma clapped and Sawyer danced.  The pots of flowers Grandma kept started to remind me of the red geraniums she always had outside on the picnic table in town.  I started to remember the upholstery shop pencils that had a string on the end to sharpen them.  I used to take them and go outside to the south side of the red building that housed their business and sign my name on the hot metal.   I started thinking about the white flowering bushes in front of their porch that I would strip to make a “rose” in my hand.  The wagon wheel on the north side of the house.  The clothes always hanging on the line.

I am lucky.  I had the gift of being impacted by them for my whole life.  But, while time can be kind in its gifts, it can also be cruel by what it takes away. Time changes people, and I know that my Grandma is not the same person that she was when I grew up.  My own children often ask me to describe what Grandma was like when I was younger because they see photos of her and they don’t recognize her physically.  We’ve watched her robust body grow tiny and shriveled and her sharp mind turn foggy.  It is so very hard to say goodbye but I also feel like I said goodbye to that woman a long time ago.  The woman that I know today isn’t the same woman that I knew ten years, or twenty years, or thirty years ago, because time changes everything.

After Grandpa passed away, it was easy to see that Grandma’s purpose seemed to have shifted and that strong, tough woman who had always reminded Dunc to "turn up his damn hearing aids" started to slip away, little by little, piece by piece, memory by memory.  And at this point in my life, it is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to watch. I know that my Grandma Ferguson, my two daughters’ Grandma Great, has lead a full life. Not a privileged one, or one devoid of hard work, but a life that has been meaningful and has impacted others. If you know my grandma, you know that it was impossible to go anywhere with her without running into someone she knew.  Kmart, the stockyards, JCPenney, a roadside vegetable stand, a vacation spot Up North, you name the place, she knew a face. So to see her lose her freedom, her strength, and her memories has been beyond difficult mainly because it bothered her.

I am so happy she gets to see Grandpa again, hopefully soon, because I know they’ve missed each other, but I also say that with grimace and some tears, because this baby boy who she couldn’t wait to get her hands on will be the only child I have that she won’t hold to her chest and rock in her chair while I take a photo.  So, selfishly, I want her to hang on, but I also want her to go.  I know she’s ready. I think maybe I’m just not. Regardless, this is a woman who is loved, who has always loved those around her,  and has left such a deep impression on this family that she will continue to be loved and live on once her earthly life is done.  Jean Ferguson is one of a kind and we will miss her so much. In fact, I think we already do.

Thank you for everything, Grandma.