February 22, 2007
A few days ago, I wrote about listening to an audio cassette recorded by my paternal grandparents at Christmas time in 1972, with grandma describing some of the gifts she and grandpa had received that holiday.
Grandpa’s gifts included some “kitchen stuff”—an apron, a baster, a meat thermometer. I don’t know whether grandpa liked to cook, but at that time, he was responsible for the household chores. By 1972, grandma was incapacitated with arthritis. At one point on this cassette, grandma commented, “Grampa offered to help me open [a present], but I told him I had all day.” Arthritis had crippled grandma’s hands into painful claws; it probably would have taken her all day to open a package. Amazingly, in spite of the condition of her hands, grandma did occasionally write letters. Again, this was 1972—long before personal computers became popular or affordable. So when I say she “wrote,” I mean she wrote. Longhand. I can’t imagine how difficult and painful that must have been.
Any letters from my grandparents are now long gone. I don’t remember finding much correspondence from them during the times my brother, sister-in-law, and The Boyfriend and I sorted through mountains of my folks’ papers and whatnot. We tackled that project on three main occasions: First, as we prepared to move my parents from their mobile home into an assisted living facility in early 2005. Next, after my father died later that year. And then again after my mother died in early 2006.
I know I got rid of at least one letter from my grandma. Part of me regrets getting rid of that and other memorabilia from both sides of the family. But where, in my small apartment and smaller storage unit, would I keep all that stuff? And I rarely look through my own photo albums, correspondence, diary entries, blog, etc. And whatever I do hang on to, someday I’ll die and someone else will have to sort through all that stuff and, knowing firsthand how overwhelming that can be, I’d like to minimize the task for whomever gets stuck with it.
Nevertheless … Note to my friend Matt: As we talked about yesterday—get your grandmother’s stories while you still can.