Memories of a Grandmother (Part Two)

Click here to read the beginning ....

I loved my Grandma Imo. To a little girl who was in awe of this woman, that brought gifts and stories and lots of love from far away .... getting to visit her, and have her to myself was the best thing in the world to me.

The summer I was eleven, for two weeks, I stayed with my Grandmother in Peoria. It was so exciting, and I remember looking forward to it for at least a month before I got to go.

It was right after the 4th of July, she came home to visit, and I went back with her. It's funny because I remember the trip as well as the entire visit. Right outside of Bartonville, where she lived, was a bridge. This wasn't just any ordinary bridge .... but a bridge that arched across a wide river, and one that lifted in the middle to let barges travel down the river. I was so amazed with a bridge that had stop lights and raised itself up in the middle. I remember being mesmerized watching the slow moving barge pass under us. It was as if I was in another world.

As we got close to Grandma's house, I remember watching the street signs. Watching for Pershing Avenue. Just a little street that curved around to another street. Not very long, and not many neighbors. Just a small little white house that sat back off the street. I know I'd been there before, but my memory doesn't let me go beyond that year I was eleven. As we pulled into her driveway, I felt so happy to be there.

The little things are so clear. Meaningless little things that tickled me as a child. I remember how clever it was to have a little rubber ball on a string hanging from the ceiling of the garage, so that when she pulled in, and the ball hit the window .... she was "home," in far enough, and could safely close the garage door. I remember her slowly inching towards that ball like it was yesterday. Forty years ago.

As we walked into her house, everything was just like I had pictured. She had talked so much about her house that I knew what I would see. She had pictures of her Grandchildren everywhere, and all the things she had made. The same things she had made for us, and my Mother, and my Aunts and cousins. Her refrigerator held all the little magnets she made. I was in awe of those magnets. I moved them everywhere and I grouped them together. Just like the ones I had at home.

That summer I learned to sew. She taught me how to work her sewing machine. How to thread a needle, and how to embroidery. I was eleven, and I absorbed everything she had to teach me, as if I were a sponge. She showed me how she made her own patterns. In my youth, I thought she was way beyond other Grandmothers. She was so talented, and so crafty, and I wanted to be just like her. There was nothing that she couldn't make ... and everything was so beautiful.

I learned to string beads, and I learned the difference in polyester fabric, and I played in her fabrics and put colors together and we made little doll quilts. She made my Barbie doll clothes, and put them together on little cards with shoes and little Barbie purses with ribbons.

It was a summer to remember .... one that I always will. As I grew up, she taught me more, and her craftiness never slowed down, until she could no longer go. When I was grown, she gave me her sewing machine, the one she taught me to sew on when I was eleven. I cherish that machine. She gave me her patterns that she made my barbie doll clothes with, and she gave me the pattern that she made the dress that my first daughter wore home from the hospital. Those old hand drawn patterns mean the world to me.

She crocheted little hats for Joey to wear in the hospital since he was so small. She worried about his little head getting cold. One of the treasures that I love the most is a dress that she crocheted for Juli from rose colored thread. I know much love went into making that dress for her Great Grand-daughter. This Spring, I'll take Megan's picture in that same dress.

My Grandmother went to Heaven almost ten years ago, but not before my children got to know her well. She followed the same traditions with my kids that she did as I was growing up. I still have the monkey socks she made and all the little toys and dolls she crocheted for my kids. She gave them a quarter when she came to visit, and when she stayed the night with us .... we sat up until the wee hours of the morning .... playing Yahtzee and Scrabble and talking about old times.

Her birthday would have been last week, and I've thought a lot about here lately. I was so lucky to have had a Grandmother like her.

Life is wonderful when you have someone that you love ....

Be Blessed.