Grandma's Legacy

Yes, I know. My poetry belongs on The Great Sea. But my grandmother wrote this piece, and this blog is as much about my family and friends as it is about me. So this poem could be posted on either blog. I chose here because the other blog is catching up on posts. (I've been inundating those readers even more with Archive reflections than here.)

My grandmother had a cute sense of humor. Childlike. She was able to retain her childlike qualities to the end of her life. On her death bed she teased the attending nurse, talking about her sex life with her third (and last) husband, who had died a few years earlier. Grandma outlived three husbands. But she remarked that, even at ninety years of age, Eddie still had a "wiggle to his waggle". She would say things like that and then laugh with a Barney Rubble laugh. Hee, hee, hee.

I recall her telling me of some shirt-tail cousins I had. Two brothers: John and Adam. They each got married and had sons about the same age, named the same: Peter. The boys were identified by using their father's name - to avoid confusion. Well, John's son came down with some illness which kept him in bed for a good number of weeks. Back in those days even "minor" illnesses could be fatal. One day after church, my grandma walked up to a woman who was a neighbor to John and his family. After talking social nothings, my grandma inquired, "By the way, how is John's Peter?" The woman looked very concerned and replied, "Why, I didn't know he had hurt it." I was only about ten or twelve when she told me this, and I don't know if I laughed more at the story or her "hee, hee, hee".

Grandma was just a tiny woman. Portly, but short. Perhaps 5'2". Incredible when one considers the shortest of her progeny is about 5'6", and many top 6'.

Aside from being published in a variety of newspapers and magazines, some of her writings were enlisted in published books by "Older Minnesotans". She also self-published a book of poems. In reading it just now I came across this poem. I think it's cute. It certainly expresses Grandma's Humor.

Age Five at a Funeral
by Amy Holmes

There were flowers,
And people in the front seats cried.
I asked my mother, "Why?"
She said, "Sh . . . someone they loved has died."
I said, "How come?"
Mom said, "Give me that bubble gum."

Then I scrunched down low,
And looked along under that long row
Where legs with feet
Maybe a hundred or more
Hung from the seats and touched the floor.

A fly flew past my head,
It lit on a man's leg -
He swatted it dead.
I cried -
Mom whispered, "She's gone to heaven, son
Don't cry."
I was glad. God had room in heaven
For a fly.

Way to go, Grandma.