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Aug. 2nd, 2008 10:58 amI went to bed really early last night because I was tired. I just woke up about an hour ago.
Today would be my maternal grandmother's 90th birthday, except she's been dead for 11 years. I still miss her. I was her first grandchild. Mom and I lived with her for a little while after Mom and Dad divorced, while Mom got her shit together and got our own place again. She was a lot of fun. She was intelligent and witty and sometimes just plain funny. She used to do this funny thing to help me wash my hands when I was a little kid. My cousin Brian was her only grandson, and she loved him to pieces. I think he and I were her two favorites, me for being the first grandbaby, and Brian for being the only boy. My other two cousins, Brian's sisters, are closer to their other grandmother, who is still living and always treated me like another grandchild. Her husband, when he was still living and reasonably healthy, built dollhouses for the "three older girls", me and my cousins April and Jennifer (who are sisters). April's and my dollhouses were for dollhouse sized dolls; Jennifer's was Barbie doll sized since she was a huge Barbie freak then.
Anyway, back on my grandmother. As I got older, she addressed more adult topics with me. She kept up with popular culture and current events in a way that a lot of older people don't, and she asked me one time to clarify the expression "Get a room." I cracked up and explained it to her. She laughed too and said she thought that was what it meant, and that if people want to go make love, they should go make love and not do it in public.
She played the radio almost all the time, and she would sing along with it; she had a lovely alto voice, and she had the gift of being able to make up an alto line that worked with the song if there wasn't one for her to follow. She used to make up little nonsense songs to sing to me about various things. I think I got my habit of singing when I'm puttering around the house from her, because she would do just that.
When she was diagnosed with leukemia and knew she was dying, she sent me (a college student at the time) to my professors to track down a poem she'd memorized in her own school years that she wanted read as we scattered her ashes (because who else would you ask but your English major granddaughter to do something like this). It transpired to be Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "A Psalm of Life".
So in memoriam of my beloved Mannie, here it is:
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream ! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way ;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle !
Be a hero in the strife !
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !
Let the dead Past bury its dead !
Act,— act in the living Present !
Heart within, and God o'erhead !
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Today would be my maternal grandmother's 90th birthday, except she's been dead for 11 years. I still miss her. I was her first grandchild. Mom and I lived with her for a little while after Mom and Dad divorced, while Mom got her shit together and got our own place again. She was a lot of fun. She was intelligent and witty and sometimes just plain funny. She used to do this funny thing to help me wash my hands when I was a little kid. My cousin Brian was her only grandson, and she loved him to pieces. I think he and I were her two favorites, me for being the first grandbaby, and Brian for being the only boy. My other two cousins, Brian's sisters, are closer to their other grandmother, who is still living and always treated me like another grandchild. Her husband, when he was still living and reasonably healthy, built dollhouses for the "three older girls", me and my cousins April and Jennifer (who are sisters). April's and my dollhouses were for dollhouse sized dolls; Jennifer's was Barbie doll sized since she was a huge Barbie freak then.
Anyway, back on my grandmother. As I got older, she addressed more adult topics with me. She kept up with popular culture and current events in a way that a lot of older people don't, and she asked me one time to clarify the expression "Get a room." I cracked up and explained it to her. She laughed too and said she thought that was what it meant, and that if people want to go make love, they should go make love and not do it in public.
She played the radio almost all the time, and she would sing along with it; she had a lovely alto voice, and she had the gift of being able to make up an alto line that worked with the song if there wasn't one for her to follow. She used to make up little nonsense songs to sing to me about various things. I think I got my habit of singing when I'm puttering around the house from her, because she would do just that.
When she was diagnosed with leukemia and knew she was dying, she sent me (a college student at the time) to my professors to track down a poem she'd memorized in her own school years that she wanted read as we scattered her ashes (because who else would you ask but your English major granddaughter to do something like this). It transpired to be Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "A Psalm of Life".
So in memoriam of my beloved Mannie, here it is:
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream ! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way ;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle !
Be a hero in the strife !
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !
Let the dead Past bury its dead !
Act,— act in the living Present !
Heart within, and God o'erhead !
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
