Dear Grama,
I have a story for you.
There was once a little girl of Irish lineage, who loved her Grandmother very much. She thought she was funny and told great stories, threw great parties, and she loved how her house smelled. So they used to spend a lot of time together.
For many years, the little girl and her sisters and father spent St. Patrick's Day at her grandmother's house. Though the little girl was Irish on both her parents' sides, it was this grandmother, her paternal grandmother, who showcased that heritage the most. The Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem and Van Morrison contributed to the soundtrack of every visit. Belleek and Waterford adorned nearly every room of the grandmother's happy, laughter, and music-filled house. Books by Irish authors and about Irish history, culture, and humor lined the bookshelves. Shamrocks grew in the pots on windowsills and in the backyard. And every St. Patrick's Day, little leprechauns, pots of gold, and additional shamrocks appeared; soda bread was consumed by the loaf, and the Americanized traditional St. Patrick's Day meal of corned beef and cabbage cooked on the stove as the little girl, her father and sisters, and her grandmother spent the afternoon telling each other stories. After dinner, port was poured, tea was brewed, and The Quiet Man was put on the TV. It was a tradition that the little girl remembered beginning after the death of grandfather; she wasn't sure, actually, if it had started before that. The grandparents' anniversary had been on March 17th, and so beyond a celebration of the family's heritage, it was also a way to keep the girl's grandmother company and bring joy to a day which otherwise could have been a little lonely. The tradition carried on for many years, until the little girl wasn't very little anymore. Sometimes there were additional guests, and sometimes a sister or two couldn't make it. But all-in-all, the tradition carried on.
In later years, the grandmother's health faltered, as can happen. She moved away to live with the now-not-so-little-girl's aunt, far across the country. When this happened, the St. Patrick's Day tradition changed. No longer did the family venture to the south Chicago suburb where the girl's father had grown up, no longer did story telling fill the afternoon. Instead, the girl, now grown, traveled back to the house where she had grown up on the northwest side of Chicago. There, the grown girl cooked the corned beef and cabbage, the potatoes and turnips--which were her favorite part of the meal--just as her grandmother had done. Instead of soda bread bought from the Irish grocery on the south side, the grown girl made brown bread, and always added extra caraway seeds. Instead of the girl, her sisters, her dad, and her grandma seated around a dinner table and up at the bar her grandfather had made, the grown girl and her dad ate their traditional meal and watched The Quiet Man in the family living room. Sometimes, friends would join, people who had partaken in the tradition at the grandmother's house, or people who had only heard the stories of those visits, but who shared the Emerald Isle ancestry, and who by those rights, always had a place at the meal--as the girl's grandmother had taught her. "Always have a place set for a friend." The port was gone, replaced with Irish whiskey, as per the tastes of the new group. But everything else remained the same. And the grandmother always got a St. Patrick's Day phone call and a card from the grown girl, who always chose the funniest card she could find--for her grandmother had taught her that laughing was one of the best things a person could possibly give someone.
Then, one year, the grandmother, who had always been too vivacious, too stubborn, and too restless to sit still for too long, got tired of sitting around in the body that couldn't keep up with her spirit. On March 7th, she went to bed, and drifted peacefully away, almost just as her granddaughter had always thought she might.
The granddaughter, actually, had always thought it would be that her grandmother would go to her bed toward the end of one of her fabled parties, while a few of her guests--the stragglers--continued with their drinks and stories and songs in the living room, giving her a happy backdrop to drift away from. As it happened, the now-grown-girl thought, it was likely that when her grandmother left, it was with the cumulative joy and memories of many raucous parties.
The grown girl too, knew that largely, it was relief for her grandmother to move on. In her final years, she wasn't the grandma the girl had spent Sundays and spring breaks and St. Patrick's Days and Fourth of Julys and late-night parties with. The woman who used to dance so exuberantly she more than once wound up in the Christmas tree, was in the end confined to days spent reading and watching movies---and while she had loved both--everyone knew she was too much of a hostess and a partier to be happy with just that for too long. While the girl and her family knew that they would miss the grandmother terribly, they also knew that wandering off to cause fun trouble somewhere new was exactly what the grandmother needed. Within just a few days, the girl and her dad and aunt were already exchanging (half) jokes about how much fun the grandmother was probably having now, reuniting with friends and loved ones who had left before her, being mischievous, and possibly even looking in on those people she had left behind, just to make sure they had a healthy dose of mischievousness in their lives still.
The year her grandmother died, the girl was quiet between that day and St. Patrick's Day. She spent her time looking at pictures, and thinking about how to say goodbye. And then, on St. Patrick's Day, the girl woke up, thinking of all the parties, and all the stories, and the St. Patrick's Day card she had not gotten to send this year. And then she thought about how, at the end of every visit to grandma's house. She had written a little note, and hid it somewhere in the house for her grandma to find while she and her family drove home. So she decided to write one last one.
She wanted to make sure her grandma knew that every meal, always, was delicious. And that everything her grandmother had taught her, she remembered. Whether it was how to tell a good antique from a piece of junk, to always set a place for a friend, or to strive to face the things that scared her, because sometimes, they lead the way to beautiful things. She wanted to make sure her grandma knew that she had inherited the hostess skills she always admired in her grandmother---her timing and composure were still a bit off, but she would continue to work on it. And she wanted her grandma to know that the St. Patrick's Day tradition continued, and that she was remembered, and would be, in toasts and stories, from then until the day when the granddaughter and grandmother would meet again.
Hope you like it, Grama.
Slainte,
Sarge