Essay Collection: Matriarchs 2

You're never too old – for anything.

This isn't a direct quote from anyone, but it has always sat at the back of my mind, an almost constant part of my internal dialogue. It also goes to: you're never too young for anything. You can always manage to do the things you have to do, and nothing is impossible.

It's rough being smart. I grew up being totally unable to accept that I could not do things perfectly from the first attempt. I'm still that way. If I have to try something new, I wait until I can do it by myself, where no one will see the ugliness that comes of it until I get it right. In a sense, I think that's why this essay has been so difficult to write compared to the one about my maternal Grandmother. My memories of her are very sensory and concrete. My paternal Grandmother, Grandma Waddell, is somewhat less corporeal, but no less significant, in the way she influenced me.

I started playing piano when I was about six because I wanted to play piano like Grandma Waddell, who taught both organ and piano to help make ends meet, even while she worked at the hospital as a dietary aid, and then a certified dietitian. When I say I wanted to play like Grandma, I mean just like Grandma. Same stuff, same difficulty, now-as-in-yesterday. She made it look so easy, the fact that she'd been doing it for probably fifty or sixty some-odd years never occurred to me. Piano practice was the bane of my existence, much to my Mother's frustration (and mine). If I couldn't do it perfect, there was no point in doing it, and, again, I mean perfect the first time. No going over it slow. No isolating one trouble spot and actually working on it. Perfect from start to finish. Mom, however, made me practice, and I got better, naturally. It didn't change my level of frustration one little bit, though. It never occurred to me that Grandma had had to practice, the same as I did. I didn't appreciate that until she told me about her teacher, who would hit her knuckles with a ruler every time she made a mistake.

It's funny; one of the last times I went to visit her at her house, I played a couple things, and she said that I had gotten better than her. I think it was Rachmanninof that started the discussion. Since then, though, I haven't had much urge to play the piano – piano was Grandma's thing, and it didn't seem right if I got better than her. I didn't stop enjoying piano, it just seemed like a line I didn't want to cross.

I took me a long time to put together the pieces of her history so that I could appreciate it fully. I knew that she and Grandpa had gotten a divorce, because I had three Grandmas: Grandma Ramsey, Grandma Waddell, and Grandma Flay. I knew that sometimes, it flooded, and she had to row across the water to her car so she could drive to work. I knew that she had kept the farm house and the land after the divorce. I had no concept of what all this had cost her most of my life. I just knew that Grandma Waddell had a permanence about her. Like someone who wouldn't be pushed in any direction she didn't already want to go.

Now I know that she worked a few retail jobs, which must have been incredibly difficult, considering how shy she is. She told me that when she was in school, a lot of the kids thought she was stuck up because she wouldn't talk to anyone, when really, she was just shy. She had to take care of three out of five children, clean, cook, and make sure that everything was taken care of for all of them on a retail salary and what she made teaching. She eventually had to sell some of the trees at the farm house for lumber to keep things going. I remember that because she told me she was in such straits she'd gotten her Bible out, and read the line: “look to the trees.” She looked out the back window, and there was her answer. She let me know that sometimes, God does answer things directly, even in this day and age.

She taught me what it means to have real faith, as well. Following her divorce, the Methodist church she had been a devoted member of turned their back on her. Yet she kept her faith – it wasn't about where she practiced, or even that she 'practiced' at all. It was what she kept with her at all times, everywhere she went. Faith was about compassion, ethical behavior, beauty, and miracles. It was about being able to forgive others and move on with your own life, instead of cursing someone who harms you and being held down by their actions. As a result, I had my own disagreements with people who considered themselves faithful but would be lost without a structure to house it in and a ritual to practice by. She never claimed that her faith was perfect, so I wasn't fooled by those who did. She could admit her mistakes without seeming like less for them.

After the last of her kids graduated high school and got out into the world (she was 63), she went back to school. I remember being very proud of the fact that my Grandma was going to college, even though I didn't know what a dietitian was all about back then.

I learned to love my tenacity through her example. She was comfortable with how she led her life, content in her own company, and I learned this (quite valuable for an only child!). I didn't know any words for it when I was little, for the quietness and solidity of her presence. Hours could go by in her house with the only sound being the clock ticking above the fireplace.

When I'm relishing my own peaceful stillness, I hear echoes of her playing “On Wisconsin” like the medium rolling pace of the river itself, or “In the Garden,” like my heart, more than my head, remembers those songs. And I catch a sense of something solid and timeless, that looks back on obstacles as what they were, without romanticizing them, and also without regret. This is what allows me to continue looking forward and upward when I come across new challenges, rather than getting hung up in the problems themselves.