Spring 2025 - Vol. 22, Issue 2

Grandma didn't always have a crooked finger from arthritis. She didn't always have gouty toes that she would soak in saltwater before achingly slipping into orthopedic shoes. She didn't always have to put drops in her glaucoma eyes and complain that the light was too bright. She didn't always experience heart palpitations and place a nitroglycerin pill under her tongue when her chest hurt. She wasn’t always old.

But that's the grandma I knew growing up, who lived on a corner surrounded by hedges seven feet tall. She was the grandma who had slipcovers over her mohair chairs and sofa and wouldn’t let you eat in the living room unless it was on a folding tray. She was the grandma whose hands and feet were gnarled with age, but her soul was timeless, and you would never forget the moments spent with her.

She was our favorite family member, a symbol of goodwill and comfort. She shuffled the cards while I cut the deck. She boiled the eggs, and I chopped them into a salad. She cried whenever she cut the onions, but her food tasted good. 

She lived on the second floor of a duplex, just one block from a busy playground. When her windows were open on a spring day, you could hear the children playing on the swings or monkey bars, the basketballs thumping on the courts, and the tennis balls clanking off the rackets. It was a city that smelled like paradise in the summer, with public swimming pools full of sopping wet kids, but cold and gray in the winter, with shovels breaking up the frozen snow on the icy sidewalks. Grandma was the queen of the family, the princess of her street. And it was a privilege to have known her.

She was the grandma I knew. The other grandma on my mother’s side lived across town next to a cemetery, and I rarely saw her. It was a mutual dislike. She was not the queen of her family but a woman whose nylons rolled down to her ankles and whose house smelled of mothballs. She served stale pastries.
 But Grandma Edna was special. I only recently discovered how unique she was. My cousin Sandy, from Brooklyn, surprised me with a phone call. I hadn’t talked to him in 40 years. He reached out to me because there wasn’t much of the family left besides him and me. The rest of our relatives had passed away in one form or another. Sandy and I weren’t close, nor did we like each other, but we were all that we had left.

“You know your grandma saved my life,” Sandy said.

“How?”

“She took me in when I was a teenager. I was getting beaten up daily by the black kids and the poor whites in the neighborhood. If I didn’t get out of there soon, either they would have killed me, or I would have done myself in.”

Cousin Sandy did well for himself thanks to Grandma. He became a cardiologist and attended medical school in Philadelphia in the 60s, graduating with honors, although he experienced a few panic attacks along the way. He then moved to Rehoboth, Delaware, to practice medicine at a local hospital. We never talked because we lived in different social strata. As far as we were concerned, we were distant relatives. 

“That’s nice to hear, Sandy. She saved me, too. Living with my mother wasn't easy. You know she had schizophrenia?”

“Yes, I remember she refused to get treatment. Distraught woman, as I recall.”

Sandy would remember that, given that he was a doctor.

“Grandma’s house was a refuge, Sandy. She lived just a few blocks away and kept me out of trouble, even though I had gotten into my share of adolescent mischief.”

“If it weren’t for her,” he said, “I would have never finished medical school. She gave me helpful advice when I faced challenges with the instructors or my social life. Did you know she gave a little speech at my wedding?”

“I didn’t know that.”

It felt strange how special she was to others; I thought it was only me. When her sister’s husband passed away and her son left for college, Grandma invited her sister to stay with her. She had always kept two bedrooms, even though she was just one person; I think she expected one of us to stay over.

Cousin Sandy said that Grandma got her hutzpah from her enterprising father. Mr. Greenberg owned a canning business in upstate Pennsylvania but lost everything during the Great Depression. Her family went from being part of the wealthy class to the lower class in one fell swoop. They shifted from big spenders to spendthrifts. It was all about bargain basement shopping and making the most of what you had. They were the epitome of sustainability.
 

In her later years, Grandma continued to hold onto her frugal ways. When she bought me clothes, she ensured they would fit me now and last for a couple of years. I asked Grandma to give me money for my birthday instead of baggy sweaters or shoes two sizes too big. I attended a label-conscious school in Philly, and I didn’t want to be laughed at.

Her thriftiness paid off, however. Grandma Edna ran a business during the forties in a North Philadelphia neighborhood for twelve years. She had kicked her alcoholic husband out and fended for herself. She owned a luncheonette, which she managed with her two young sons. I wish I had known her back then. She would have surely given me a mop and bucket and told me to start earning my keep. I can picture her making grilled cheese and tuna salad sandwiches for her customers, then doing the bookkeeping at night before going to bed. Whatever she did resulted in a profitable business. She was a feminist before her time: independent, self-sufficient, and didn’t take anyone’s bullshit.

When my father left for the Army and my uncle moved upstate to start his produce business, Grandma Edna sold the restaurant. I suppose she didn’t trust anyone to work for her except her sons. She believed it would be better to get a job at a department store where she wouldn’t have to work as hard.

“She looked like Betty Davis with big blue eyes,” said Cousin Sandy. “She had a small pouting mouth, bright red hair, and was just as feisty as Betty Davis. She didn't always agree with you, and she didn't always say the right things, but people loved her. She made you feel she was on your side, no matter the situation.”

Grandma saved money and invested in real estate. At that time, real estate was the gold standard and a man’s domain. With the money she saved from the luncheonette, she put down payments on four properties: three duplexes and a single-family home in South Jersey. She planned to live off the rental income upon retirement, and it worked out well. Coupled with her Social Security check, she retired at the age of 62. She didn’t live extravagantly, but she was comfortable.

“She was like a mother to me,” Sandy said.

“It’s funny. That’s how I felt.”

It was strange how a cousin, who was practically a stranger, shared the same feelings about my grandmother. We also had vulnerable mothers, and we were drawn to the strength of Grandma Edna.

After I left for college, I seldom saw Grandma Edna. She had remarried for the third time, but the couple’s health was deteriorating. Following her husband's death, Grandma's condition declined significantly. She spent more time in the hospital during her 87th year than at home. When I returned from a school break, I could see from the pain on my father’s face that Grandma was nearing the end of her life.  

A few months later, my father called me with bad news. All I could hear in my head was her favorite Big Bands playing—Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, and the Dorsey brothers. I remembered how she loved watching the Lawrence Welk Show, setting up her folding tray, eating Ritz crackers, and sipping tea.  

I can’t remember who attended the funeral because I was in a mournful daze. My father said that Grandma was ready. It was her time, and she knew it.

I believe she was happy to go; she was weary of being old and unwell. She longed to close her eyes and find peace.

So when she was laid to rest, we didn’t feel as sad. We cried because we loved Grandma, not because she was gone. We returned to her duplex and sat in the living room in silence, listening to the sounds of the house, feeling her presence, smelling her perfume, and half-expecting Grandma to come out of the kitchen and serve us tuna salad sandwiches.