My Queen in Calico

When I was very little, my grandmother used to sing to me.  I thought she had a beautiful voice.  One of the songs she used to sing was "School Days".  I really didn't understand the lyrics.  The song was old, even when she first heard it.  It was written in 1907 and she wasn't born for another 11 years. 

Now that she's gone, I am trying to call up all my memories of her.  The songs are some of the very first. 

At one point in time, I was nearly finished with my degree at a small school in Texas.  However, in April, I got news that my grandfather had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.  I asked my professors if they could give me my exams early, and they kindly obliged.

I drove to Ohio and my grandfather passed away shortly afterwards.  I had about one semester to go at the Texas school.

For reasons I still don't understand to this day, I decided to transfer schools to Kent State, where I would have to finish more than 40 credit hours to complete my degree.  So, instead of having one semester, I had a year and a half to go.

I lived with my grandmother until I finished school.  As the years would pass, I'd revisit that decision frequently.  It seemed so silly:  to delay graduation by a year to stay in Ohio.  At the time, I told myself that I wanted to stay with my grandmother because I wanted to help her transition to living alone, after grandpa's passing.

Now, I think I really just wanted to be with my grandma.  Probably nothing more or less to the story than that.  I lived with her for two years.  Now that she's gone, I wouldn't trade those two years for anything.

She still got around pretty well back then.  She was only in her mid 70s.  We would go to breakfast on Sunday mornings.  She would keep me involved in all the family's doings.  I became closer to my Aunt Marianne's family.  It was a very, very nice time.

I moved quite a bit during my career, eventually settling in Toledo, where I live now.  However, each step along the way, I visited her regularly: at least monthly, and sometimes even more frequently.  My son got used to the trip since we made it frequently.  I think the reason my grandmother and son were so close is that they saw so much of each other.  She probably saw more of him than of any other of her great-grandkids. 

I have a lot of photos of grandma with Logan from the time he was a baby until relatively recently.  They were like two kindred spirits.  Logan appears to have inherited her gene for kindness. 

Grandma never really asked anything of anybody.  She just liked having people around.  She transitioned well to an empty home, especially considering she had lived the first seven decades of her life in crowded Catholic family homes. 

When I played Little League Baseball, I was the team's worst player.  My coach must have told my Grandma that I needed some batting practice at home.  It was Grandma who threw me batting practice in the back yard.  She was actually an accomplished softball player in her day, playing on organized teams.  She later said that she remembers playing baseball with the neighborhood kids all hours of the day until the sun went down.  When the family went through her old photos, they found one of her old team photos where she is sitting down, fielder's glove perched on one knee.

Whenever there were parent-teacher conferences at school, she would go.  On more than one occassion, the next school day, teachers took a moment to tell me I was very lucky.  They could see it even in the brief interaction they had with her.

It wasn't until grandma's passing that I realized how much my visits to Tallmadge meant to me.  It was such a regular feature of my life.  I always thought of it in terms of what it meant to Grandma, but really, I think it meant just as much to me.


My High School English teacher, Martha Alfonso, once said that "home is where they will always take you in."  For me, Grandma's house was that.  Whether I was 3 or 25, I always had a home with Grandma.  Even when times had changed and I started a family of my own, I knew that I could always swing by on short notice.  There was always a bed for me, there.  There was always a welcoming smile.


Now, I have a sense of loss in so many ways.  For almost the entirety of my life, Grandma's house was either where I lived, or the place I would always come back to.  When I was in the Army or away to school in Texas, whenever I could return to Tallmadge, I did.


Places, in and of themselves, mean little to me.  If I had to pick a favorite place in the world on its location, alone, I couldn't name one.  It's the people associated with them that gives them context.  I can easily name dozens and dozens of people I wish I were spending time with right now. 


Now that grandma is gone, going back to Tallmadge could never mean the same.  A regular ritual of my life is gone.  An era has passed.






School days, school days
Dear old golden rule days
Readin' and 'ritin' and 'rithmetic
Taught to the tune of the hickory stick
You were my queen in calico
I was your bashful barefoot beau
And you wrote on my slate
"I love you, so"
When we were a couple of kids

-School Days (When We Were a Couple of Kids)