Have you ever loved someone so much it hurt?
My grandmother was the best grandmother in the whole world – part loving matriarch, part fairy godmother, part wise counselor and a host of other things besides. I loved her more than I can say; in fact, I’m writing a book about her. I’ll share what I’ve written in the “foreword” with you now:
I’ve often told my friends I suspect I must be directly descended from those ancient Hebrews who wandered forty years in the desert with Moses – the ones who dropped dead because of their ceaseless murmuring and complaining, that is. I know, for instance, there are numerous parts of the world in which food is scarce. I have a permanent file of pictures in my head featuring babushka-clad women with deeply creased, careworn faces and puffy ankles protruding over unstylish, clodhopperish shoes standing in interminably long lines somewhere in Eastern Europe hoping to purchase a loaf of bread, only to arrive at the counter just as the last loaf has been sold. It’s not that I’m heartless; I do pity people whose lot in life includes the misery of living out such scenes as these. I know millions of children all over the globe go to bed hungry every night. Trust me - I feel suitably guilty for having a life of ease and plenty compared to all these unfortunate people. Even so, I had no difficulty complaining to myself about the fact I had to grocery shop that day, and I was murmuring in my heart as I navigated my great big shopping cart amongst the umpteen items bulging from the aisles of the 75,000 square feet of the nice Kroger store located at a convenient distance from my home.
There, you see? I told you.
This particular incident took place on a cold, blustery December afternoon, thirty years after my grandmother Margaret Lutz Ashbrook had died. I was trying to do my shopping in a hurry in order to get home before the profusion of big snowflakes falling from the leaden sky overhead turned the steep hill on my route home into a treacherous slide (one time I slid halfway through the intersection at the foot of this hill during bad weather despite heroic efforts to brake). That’s me, always thinking ahead.
I was more than 50 years old at the time - certainly old enough to have learned how to conduct myself and behave with some degree of decorum in the face of most anything life might toss my way. I had finished rounding up the items on my list and was standing at the tail end of the check-out line when I caught sight of several stems of fresh gladiolas peeking out from the arms of a woman ahead of me in line. Gladiolas had been my grandmother’s favorite flower, you see. She grew them every year in her enormous garden, and when they were in season an arrangement of gladiolas was always to be seen by the fireplace in her living room.
An odd thing happened to me just then. It struck so suddenly that I was in the middle of it before I was even aware it had begun. I suddenly realized (oh, no!) that big, hot tears had collected themselves behind my eyelids and were already beginning to cascade down my face. My throat, which had been perfectly normal an instant before, was constricting itself into painful spasms and simultaneously I was disturbingly aware of having to concentrate very, very hard to suppress an overpowering urge to break out into a loud, guttural wail. I found myself in the inexorable grip of a deep and profound grief, an intense and painful longing to be in my grandmother’s presence once more, to see her face and to hear her voice. To my horror and embarrassment, I began to sob in public, right there in the Kroger check-out line, in front of God and everybody.
Well. Anything But Forgotten is meant to be a small tribute to my grandmother’s life – because, after all, you can see for yourself she is anything but forgotten.