The Rose Garden, Chapter 6 – Two Women

Wiener Schnitzel, Author Holger.Ellgaard (CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported)

“Her children rise up and call her blessed…” (Prov. 31: 28).

My mother worked in the delicatessen she and my father owned.  Her  mother, my grandmother worked — less frequently than my mother — cleaning houses, downtown.

It was my mother who had convinced my father to purchase their small delicatessen in Harlem.  She thrived in the store, making countless friends over the years, despite her shyness and difficulties with language.  At the holidays, Ma lovingly placed hundreds of greeting cards into customer packages.

Grandma would tell us about her day and the swank Manhattan apartments she saw.  Mrs. Garland often said, “No one irons like you.”

Sometimes Grandma would share her concerns for her employers with us.  “Mrs. Garland has a girl older than you.  That one spends too much time alone.  I am going to ask if she can come and play with you.”  Little did we children realize who the famous Judy Garland was or her daughter, Liza.

The Kahls, another couple for whom Grandma cleaned, painted as a hobby.  A painting by the Kahls of the village where my mother spent her early life hung in a place of honor in our dining room, throughout my childhood.

Unlike Ma — always sweet, but ephemeral as smoke — Grandma was pragmatic and down to earth.  Where my mother was emotional, my grandmother was stoic.  Where Ma was silk, Grandma was steel.  Where my mother was yielding, my grandmother was highly organizational.

Lip Balm and Barrettes

Though Grandma was the more practical, Ma made sure to stock every variety of household item for us.

These were kept on hand in the garage:  lip balm, barrettes, contact paper, cold cream, glue, batteries, first aid ointment, hairspray, soap, scissors, cellophane tape, toothbrushes, hair brushes, baby powder, adhesive bandages, rubber bands, oak tag, markers, combs, headbands, suntan lotion, construction paper, crayons, stencils, sparkles, paper clips.  Like a genie, Ma would produce the necessary item at the critical moment.

Stationery, pens, and pencils were kept (along with socks) in a small cherry wood desk, in the living room.

Wiener Schnitzel and Hard Boiled Eggs

Both women were great cooks.

Wiener schnitzel (Viennese style veal filet), stuffed peppers, paprikás (chicken simmered slowly, with paprika and sour cream), cucumber salad (again with that Hungarian staple, sour cream), tarhonya (browned Hungarian egg barley), nokedli (grated Hungarian egg noodles akin to the German spaetzle), and German potato dumplings were among our favorites.

Even tuna fish sandwiches we made with sour cream, rather than mayonnaise.  I was thirteen before I ever tasted pizza.

Sundays, Grandma always served fried chicken, tangible proof of our prosperity.  Pumpkins were forbidden us at Halloween, since they were the food of the poor in Hungary.

Ma made hard boiled eggs for the occasional day trips the family took upstate.  These she wrapped carefully in tin foil.  We actually got as far as Lake George and back on one of these jaunts (a round trip distance of some 400 miles).

My father, I know, respected his mother-in-law.  He described Grandma as “the most honest person in the world” and was concerned not to disappoint her.

Grandma would brook nonsense from neither children nor adults.  She could keep us in line with a look.

Duty for my grandmother was its own reward, a principle she sought to instill in us from infancy.  On rare occasions, Grandma would apply a wooden cooking spoon to that part of our anatomy on which it would do the most good.

Unlike my mother, my grandmother valued formal education, having been deprived of it herself.  She saw schooling as a way for us to advance in the world.  For that reason, it was to her we brought our report cards and school achievements.  Ma applauded these regardless; Grandma urged improvement.

While I adored my mother, I could not as a girl have said whether I loved my grandmother.  We sparred over my lack of tidiness, and my misuse of time.  For my grandmother, waste in any form was anathema.

My younger sister remembers Grandma working in the garden.  I, on the other hand, had something of an adversarial relationship with Grandma.  It seems odd to say that, but it is true.  She was proud of my school work.  She scrimped and saved so that I could have art lessons.  But Grandma kept me at a distance, emotionally.

An Infant’s Death

I have since figured out this had little or nothing to do with me.  My grandmother lost her first child in infancy.  I am Anna’s namesake.

For a full year following the loss, Grandma covered all the mirrors in her home in mourning.  Whether this was a religious practice or my grandmother could not bear the sight of herself, I did not think to ask.  It seems clear she felt responsible in some way for the baby’s death.

Certainly, the loss marked her.  For the remainder of her life, she shunned vanity, deliberately limiting her wardrobe (apart from Sunday attire) to utilitarian shoes and the plainest of what in those days were called “housedresses.”

Even on Sundays my grandmother avoided the use of cosmetics of any kind.  Only once did I see her try on lipstick.  She did so tentatively, applying the faintest hint of color from a golden tube belonging to my mother.  Almost immediately my grandmother wiped any trace from her lips, though not before glancing up at me.

For that brief moment I caught a glimpse of hope on her face, a longing for approval in her eyes.  It was in that way I discovered my grandmother’s self-denial came at great cost.

I must have reminded Grandma too sharply of that lost infant.  Maybe I called up her guilt — real or imagined.  Maybe she felt she did not deserve a “second chance.”

Spirituality

Through hardship and self-discipline, passion had long ago been transmuted to spirituality in my grandmother.  This regularly put me at odds with her.

It was not that I resisted religious instruction.  Nature from the outset inspired a sense of awe in me that could only be described as spiritual.  What I resisted was structure.  The Angelus bells which tolled at set intervals from a nearby convent served less to order my day than interrupt my exploration of God’s world.

It was from Grandma that I received my first picture Bible and missal.  I recall one particular Sunday as a little girl sitting far back in church and reading about Christ.  Story after story spoke to me of a real person.  Only late in the mass did I regain startled awareness of where I was.

Heart Trouble

Life around me did not, however, stand still.  Grandma began to develop heart problems.  Outdoors, she would hold a cloth to her nose and mouth to warm the air.

I was initially embarrassed by this.  The cloth made my grandmother a distinctive figure around the neighborhood.  But if it influenced the opinion others had of her, it never caused Grandma to hesitate.

Grandma had the heart attack that led to her death while we were on vacation in Canada.  I remember being awakened at the hotel, in the middle of the night, confused by the activity.

Though the doctors did manage to stabilize her, Grandma’s condition would not allow her to travel.  She remained hospitalized in Canada, while the rest of us returned to the States.  I still cannot understand why no one stayed with her.  It must, of course, have been the press of business.

My mother recalled later the hospitalization lasted a few short weeks.  It felt like months to me.  Finally, we were informed Grandma was well enough for release. Unfortunately, another heart attack put Grandma in the Intensive Care Unit before we could take her home.

I was told I could see her, but only for a few minutes.  I had never been inside a hospital, let alone an ICU.  Everything seemed foreign, green, and overwhelming.

They led me to Grandma’s bedside, but I was unprepared to find her with so many tubes and monitors in place.  She was conscious and reached out to me.  I can still recall the expression in her eyes.

I wanted to tell her how much I loved her.  But it did not seem a private place.  There were no walls — only curtains — and even those were open.  A nurse hovered nearby, checking on things.  Machines blinked and beeped.  And then I was ushered out.

I felt so defeated.  I knew I had made a terrible mistake.  I was determined on my next turn in the unit to tell Grandma I loved her, no matter who was there.  But by that time she was unconscious.  She died within the hour.

For years afterwards, we came across silver dollars Grandma had tucked for safekeeping into the heating ducts.

When I started high school that fall, one of my classes was in a basement room painted the same puke green the hospital walls had been.  I hated that class.  Just when I thought I could stand it no longer, my aversion to the color began to fade.

I tormented myself over the failure to tell my grandmother that I loved her.  But she already knew…in the same way that I knew she loved me.  Everything she had ever done showed it.

Not only do I remember Grandma, not only did she plant the seeds of my faith, and play a critical role in shaping my character.  I am certain I will see her again in the next life.

Both my mother and grandmother remain models of faith and courage to me — variations on a theme.

Copyright © 2008 – Present Anna Waldherr.  All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60247-890-9

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