My grandmother passed away last week. She was my last grandparent. I called her Oma Maria and I was extremely lucky to have her for as long as I did. People tell me that all the time anyway. I still didn't think i had enough time with her. She lived to be 89. Most people don't get to have their grandparents way into their thirties. So I guess that makes me one of the lucky ones. It still doesn't make her passing any easier, especially not being far away, too far to go home for her funeral. This today was the first funeral of a family member that I could not attend. It is tough, you lack the closure that you get from a being there when you lay a person to rest. I still picture her house with her in it and somehow it feels like I should be seeing her when I go home next. Here, a thank you to our "family-priest" Herr Rottmayer is in order, who kindly promised to hold a special service for her when we come to visit next. This will help me very much and I am very grateful for his caring. My grandmother liked him very much, particularly his Christmas mass, which she was always raving about and wouldn't miss for anything.
Still I have a lot to be thankful for. Growing up I spent every Saturday with her. My Mom would drop me off in the morning. Then we would cook. Usually she would call the day before and ask what I wanted to eat. For at least several years, my answer was always the same. Gulasch und Nudeln (which is Hungarian style Gulasch and egg noodles). She made the best. She would even give me my own little pan and let me make my own. It was usually inedible, because I did not know what to put in it, but she always humored me. Later on, we moved on to making home-made pizza and occasionally some pasta and meatsauce, but not much, my grandpa was never a big fan.
We would play cards and make crossword puzzles until we turned blue in the face. It was always too early when my mom came by to pick me up. "But we weren't done with the game"..
In the summer we sat out in the yard under her little sun roof, she called it the "pergola". I loved it, because her place was the only place I knew with a "Hollywood Schaukel" a bench-swing that you could sit on and rock back and forth on. For some reason, the table out there had a drawer and for whatever reason, it was always full with hazelnuts that we cracked and ate. I just remembered this. In the beginning there was a sweet-cherry tree there as well, I don't remember why, but they took it down one year. The yard over at her house was very large, and I was always busy with it. Watching the sprinklers go (we didn't have any like that, they were fast, had really high pressure and in the summer you could run around on the lawn try to dodge them. Then there were the barrels of rain water, collected for plant watering. There was a run-off from the garage roof that fed them.
Later a part of the yard became a vegetable garden. I remember my grandfather growing waaaay too large zucchinis, and we couldn't convince him that you're supposed to leave them really small. This is how I know a zucchini will basically grow to pumpkin size if you let it.
Also, she used to always wear all kinds of fashion necklaces. I distinctly remember one that had alternating white plastic chain pieces and then a gold piece in between, they were always long chains and I loved to play with them and inventory them as a kid. She had to have had a few dozen of those.
And magazines, she always had magazines at her house.
People tell me to this day that I have a "grandma-chin". It always happens when I make a certain face. It looks precisely like my grandmas. My dad has it too. Now that I think about it, it is nice, because that way I get to see her in me, every-time I want to when I look in the mirror.
In my family my grandma's salad dressing was referred to as "Wasser-Salat" or water-salad, her dressing while it was always good it was always was watery and sort of made the salad drowned and limp. I thought it had character.
My grandparents always had a silver car, which makes me think of silver as a grandma/old-fashioned color in cars.
In the winter, grandma would wear a very old, probably inherited fur coat. She had a matching hat for it, it was dark dark brown and very poufy, which earned her the nickname "the fuzzy one" from Terry, which made my mom almost choke while laughing so hard as we were waiting in the car when we were picking up grandma at her house. I always thought she looked very dignified, almost regal, though very short. It makes me grin now when I think about it.
During Christmas time, we usually went on a trip together, like a bus tour, we went to Cologne, the Stuttgart Zoo, we went to the Strasburg Christmas market one year. We always had a great time.
Once I had my driver's license, we started going to the town and had coffee and cake there occasionally. We always had a good time.
Me and her had a running joke, that she wasn't done on this earth until she was 100 years old and that there was no other choice but to hang in there. She always laughed about that and said she'd never live that long. She was 10 years and roughly 3 months shy of 100, and I miss her very much.
Still I have a lot to be thankful for. Growing up I spent every Saturday with her. My Mom would drop me off in the morning. Then we would cook. Usually she would call the day before and ask what I wanted to eat. For at least several years, my answer was always the same. Gulasch und Nudeln (which is Hungarian style Gulasch and egg noodles). She made the best. She would even give me my own little pan and let me make my own. It was usually inedible, because I did not know what to put in it, but she always humored me. Later on, we moved on to making home-made pizza and occasionally some pasta and meatsauce, but not much, my grandpa was never a big fan.
We would play cards and make crossword puzzles until we turned blue in the face. It was always too early when my mom came by to pick me up. "But we weren't done with the game"..
In the summer we sat out in the yard under her little sun roof, she called it the "pergola". I loved it, because her place was the only place I knew with a "Hollywood Schaukel" a bench-swing that you could sit on and rock back and forth on. For some reason, the table out there had a drawer and for whatever reason, it was always full with hazelnuts that we cracked and ate. I just remembered this. In the beginning there was a sweet-cherry tree there as well, I don't remember why, but they took it down one year. The yard over at her house was very large, and I was always busy with it. Watching the sprinklers go (we didn't have any like that, they were fast, had really high pressure and in the summer you could run around on the lawn try to dodge them. Then there were the barrels of rain water, collected for plant watering. There was a run-off from the garage roof that fed them.
Later a part of the yard became a vegetable garden. I remember my grandfather growing waaaay too large zucchinis, and we couldn't convince him that you're supposed to leave them really small. This is how I know a zucchini will basically grow to pumpkin size if you let it.
Also, she used to always wear all kinds of fashion necklaces. I distinctly remember one that had alternating white plastic chain pieces and then a gold piece in between, they were always long chains and I loved to play with them and inventory them as a kid. She had to have had a few dozen of those.
And magazines, she always had magazines at her house.
People tell me to this day that I have a "grandma-chin". It always happens when I make a certain face. It looks precisely like my grandmas. My dad has it too. Now that I think about it, it is nice, because that way I get to see her in me, every-time I want to when I look in the mirror.
In my family my grandma's salad dressing was referred to as "Wasser-Salat" or water-salad, her dressing while it was always good it was always was watery and sort of made the salad drowned and limp. I thought it had character.
My grandparents always had a silver car, which makes me think of silver as a grandma/old-fashioned color in cars.
In the winter, grandma would wear a very old, probably inherited fur coat. She had a matching hat for it, it was dark dark brown and very poufy, which earned her the nickname "the fuzzy one" from Terry, which made my mom almost choke while laughing so hard as we were waiting in the car when we were picking up grandma at her house. I always thought she looked very dignified, almost regal, though very short. It makes me grin now when I think about it.
During Christmas time, we usually went on a trip together, like a bus tour, we went to Cologne, the Stuttgart Zoo, we went to the Strasburg Christmas market one year. We always had a great time.
Once I had my driver's license, we started going to the town and had coffee and cake there occasionally. We always had a good time.
Me and her had a running joke, that she wasn't done on this earth until she was 100 years old and that there was no other choice but to hang in there. She always laughed about that and said she'd never live that long. She was 10 years and roughly 3 months shy of 100, and I miss her very much.
