Archive for July 7th, 2008
On My Grandmother’s Passing
Today we fly to Florida for my grandmother’s funeral. She passed away at home, still in complete possession of all her faculties. She was simply worn out by taking care of my grandfather, who has been slowly slipping away for years.
On July 4, after a visit to my grandfather’s nursing home, she drove home to her Daytona Beach condominium, got ready for bed, and then, literally, dropped dead.
My father and uncle, my grandmother’s priest, and other people around her encouraged her, even pleaded with her to let someone else take over the job of caring for her husband. Her response was always, “What meaning would my life have if I were to do that”?
My grandmother was a Bronx girl, born, raised and married in Fordham. She spent most of her early life within a block or two of St. James Park. She studied opera, worked for the telephone company, spoke in perfectly polished paragraphs, and dressed, almost every day, in Leslie Fay.
None of these details tells the complete story, but they give a sense of her amazing style, which was a mix of glamour, modesty, refinement, and a ferocious strength.
I thought she would live forever.
