My Grandma

On Saturday, February 26th, my grandma died.

She was 84 years old and in a nursing home. She had been demented for years, and her quality of life had significantly deteriorated. I have seen her a few times in the past 3 years or so, and each time, seeing her was more and more painful and difficult since the person I had known and loved for so many years was clearly gone. Even her face and body had changed-- her face was swollen, and she had put on weight from years of inactivity and relatively unhealthy nursing home food. Gone were the colorful saris that she had always worn; baggy t-shirts and sweatsuits took their place.

In the past week, though, I can't remember that version of my grandma; instead, I can hear her voice as clear as a bell in my head, asking me questions, talking to me about a trip she had taken or a book she had read. I imagine her as young, thin, quick, always moving, and full of vibrance. This is, after all, how I knew her for so many years.

My grandma came to live with us when I was 3, and I can't remember a life before her. She was an instrumental part of my daily life as a child. As my cousin said at her funeral last week, "Most kids had 2 parents; I was lucky enough to have 3." I did have 3 parents as a child-- so much of who I am today and so much of what I love today is because of her influence on my life. She taught me that books are your friends-- to love them, seek comfort in them, to devour them. I was a terrible sleeper as a child and often sat up awake in the middle of the night reading and reading. She always read to me, and she always had a different voice for every character, and she remembered those voices in between readings. She took me to the Norwalk Public Library and let me pick out books to check out and bring home. I remember her reading me the Very Hungry Caterpillar and Bread and Jam for Frances. I had my favorite library books that I would always want to check out again and again, and she would have to convince me to get a different book. She taught me so much about words-- I had this little desk that opened up and had a magnetic board on it, and she would sit with me and help me put words together. She taught me to play Scrabble-- I still have our old Scrabble board with old scorecards with our names scrawled in my 5 year old handwriting.

She sang to me-- she had such a beautiful singing voice. I always remember her singing to herself in the kitchen while she cooked or cleaned. She told me stories-- she knew all the Indian myths and told me the story of the Ramayana, complete with different voices for each character, of course. I remember her telling me the story in my uncle's old Manhattan apartment when my cousin was a baby and was napping.

She took me to my first day of nursery school-- I remember the sari she was wearing as I clung to it and cried. It was white and had a purple and green pattern on it, and I always remembered that day whenever she wore it. She taught me to stand up straight and project my voice when speaking in front of people. She taught me to love maps-- I remember her showing me India on the globe I had as a child. It was purple. She taught me to be curious about the world and other cultures. She got me this beautiful set of porcelain dolls, each from a different country dressed in their native garb, and we would read about each country and culture together.

She taught me how to bake-- how to measure dry ingredients carefully, how to never over-handle dough, never over-beat a cake batter lest it become tough. I still make the blueberry muffins that she taught me how to make as a child.

Funny thing-- 30 some-odd years later, I still love books, singing, maps, and baking. To this day. She held so much knowledge and so much beauty in her heart and mind, and at every moment, she was trying to share it with you in some way. She was always trying to show me something-- a beautiful chandelier, the specific brush-stroke of Monet compared to Van Gogh, a pigeon and a sparrow sharing some bread in New York City fountain.

What an amazing, remarkable woman she was. She was so bright, so quick, so driven, so ahead of her time in so many ways. I always loved her, as a granddaughter loves a grandmother who reads to her, sings to her, bakes with her and teaches her so much about the world. As I got older, I was amazed at how she could contribute to any conversation-- about politics, current events, a book I was reading. She knew *so* much and was basically a walking encyclopedia-- as my cousin said in his speech at her funeral, she would often read the paper while watching Jeopardy and answer nearly all the questions correctly AND correct anyone else who was answering them incorrectly.

I continue to be amazed when I learn more about her life-- she earned Masters degrees in history and economics at the age of 18 AND graduated as the top ranking student in South India. As a very young woman in the 1940s, this was a truly amazing feat. She gave so much to everyone around her-- she helped run a girls' orphanage, and she worked with indigent women to help them make and sell mirror-work and other crafts. She sent away for Betty Crocker cookbooks and taught herself to make intricate cakes in cast iron pans over a kerosene stove in villages with no running water or electricity.

She came to this country when I was small, and she reinvented her life. She learned to drive and got a job, a used car, a library card, and eventually a U.S. citizenship. She lived with us til I was 11, and then she went to live in New Jersey with my uncle, aunt, and cousin, but I still saw her pretty frequently while I lived at home in my parents' house. She got a job as a librarian in the local public library and even had an email address. We used to email regularly, and I just went through my old emails and read the ones she had sent to me. In doing so, I realized that she was the one who had found a book of wedding readings at her library and had suggested I look through it to find passages to be read at my wedding. Pieces of our wedding vows came from that book. I found an email where she was asking me to send it back to her since the circulation desk folks had been asking her about it.

And now I can't believe she's gone-- really and truly gone. Although I can't remember the last time I had a real conversation with her (maybe when I saw her in December of 2008? But not really-- she was already pretty out of it then), all I want to do is talk to her now. Seeing her lying in the casket made me realize that I will never speak to her again. Interestingly, she looked more like herself then than she had in recent years-- her face less swollen, and dressed in a sari like she always had. I almost wanted to poke her and say, "Wake up, Grandma; there are so many things I want to ask you..."

I wish I could ask her about her experiences being a mother and having two small children. How did she help her children sleep through the night? How did she know that her children were ready to wean? How did she find the patience to deal with everything? She made some really tough choices as a parent: she chose to stay with her husband in rural villages and send her children away so that they could get good educations. How did she make these choices? How should I decide what's best for me and my kids? What wisdom could she impart as I bushwhack through my own parenting journey? She always carried herself with grace, dignity, and selflessness-- how the hell did she do it?

I have a little boy who loves trucks and trains-- how did she make those awesome train cakes? I wish she could show me. She used to knit and sew and quilt, and I never learned how. She taught me to knit when I was little, but she did so reluctantly, fearing that I would ruin my eyes, and I never stuck with it and now can't remember how. She was involved with India's independence movement, despite her parents' disapproval. I wish she could tell me about her experiences in this historical movement. I remember that she bought my dad a photobiography of Gandhi for a birthday or Christmas, and she was looking through it with us. She could tell you about each photo-- who was in it, where it was taken, its historical significance, etc. All of that knowledge is gone with her.

Her death has transported me back to the world of being a child and having her woven into my daily life. I'm amazed at how many things I've remembered over the past few days that I hadn't thought of in years-- books, poems, songs, library trips, gifts she gave me, places she took me-- the fact that she was the person who showed me how to eat an ice cream cone-- that sort of thing. I haven't thought about any of these details in years, and now I can't get it out of my head. I see her in so much of what's around me. Everything seems to conjure up a memory of her.

But I'll never see her again. I wish I could tell her how much she meant to me, how much she taught me, how much she influenced and enriched my life. Like my cousin said to her at the end of his speech on Thursday, "I will see you in my dreams, and in the faces of my children."

I still can't believe she's really gone.