My grandmother was fifty-four when my grandfather died. His was a sudden and unexpected death. He left behind a grieving widow and six devastated children. My mother used to share details of that tragic event with my brother and sisters and I every September on the anniversary of her father’s passing – it was a heartbreaking story.
My grandmother lived to be eighty-nine. I don’t think she even looked at another man during the thirty-five years of her widowhood. I know she never took off her wedding ring. But where my mother entertained us with stories about adventures with her dad, I don’t remember my grandmother ever talking about him.
I find myself thinking about my Gramma often these days. I’m named for her and always felt a special connection with her because of that – ours is an usual name.
For most of my life I’ve only thought about Gramma in a grandmother’s role. Recently I’ve started to imagine her as a whole person; a young woman, a wife, a mother; she was all of that long before her grandchildren arrived.
Gramma married my grandfather when she was in her early twenties and had given birth to seven babies by the time she was thirty-seven. This leads me to believe my grandparents had a good thing going. The fact Gramma never dated, or even entertained, another man after my grandfather’s death speaks volumes about her commitment to him. He was her one true love, her one and only.
I suppose it’s natural to be thinking about things like this given my recent fall into widowhood but I find it surprising that I’m finding a connection to an event that happened before I was born. Although I always felt close to my grandmother I never knew my grandfather beyond the stories my mother told and the fading black and white pictures she cherished. I have no sense of my grandparents as a couple and yet they are the couple counseling me from beyond.
Gramma obviously sorted things out after my grandfather died, she got a handle on grief and lived what I’m fairly certain was a happy enough thirty five years without her one true love. I can still recall her laugh and don’t have to try to hard to remember the twinkle in her eyes – she sparkled. Somehow she carried on.
I would like to sparkle for my granddaughters, I’d like them to be able to look back on their Gramma, years from now, and be able to say she sorted things out. I’d like to set a good example. I’d like to be remembered as an Elva who was able to carry on without her one true love, even if some days that was hard – a strong Elva, just like the one I am named for.