So Long, Grandma Pye.

I have a long-standing dread of January. The month isn’t always miserable, but for the last 18 Januaries, more often than not, it has not been kind to me. Unfortunately, this last one has landed firmly in the not kind pile. My last grandparent, Grandma Pye, passed away. She was 96.

When we were little, we saw her a lot at Christmas. We’d go to the farm where her and Grandpa were and open a bunch of our presents there. Some years, because we lived about 6 hours from them, we would head down on Christmas Eve. So we had to leave a note on our tree telling Santa where to send the gifts. One Christmas Eve, when a bunch of the family were all hanging out in the living-room, I was sure we were going to get caught by Santa and could have sworn I heard sleigh bells. I remember getting a ukulele for Christmas and when I opened it at Grandma’s house, I think I woke the dead with my happy shrieks. I also terrorized everyone at that house with an obnoxious doll that would scream and cry if you took out its soother. *Mysteriously*, it disappeared on me, and Grandma had to mail it back to us.

Now that I’m older, I don’t know how Grandma made all that food for all of us. She was always on the move and made it look so easy. Somehow, that house could handle all of us tearing around it, playing hide and seek, going into that toy box of hers and playing with whatever we could find. I remember there was this one doll that was supposed to talk, but by the time we got to it, when you pulled the string, it would make this sound that was a cross between a growl, a groan and a belch. For some twisted reason, I always wanted to find that doll and see if it still even worked at all.

I remember staying at that house for long times. Sometimes Mom and Dad took care of it when Grandma and Grandpa took a trip, sometimes Mom and Dad took a trip and Grandma and Grandpa took care of us. But we had lots of fun there.

I also think of the music. Grandma didn’t play music, but Grandpa did, and I always think of the two together. At some point during Christmas, there was usually a song or two that got played when we were younger.

As we got older, we still saw her at Christmas and other weekends but it got harder because we all had schedules and things, and I was in that stage where I was more worried about my own stuff than making long trips. I guess, stupidly, I always thought everybody would be around for a long long time.

Then Grandma and Grandpa moved to town and sold their farm. That was weird, but it didn’t take too long for the new house to feel like theirs and have that ability to have places for all of us.

A few years later, Grandpa passed away, and things were strange until we got used to the new normal. But Grandma seemed to just keep chugging along. I don’t know about everybody else, but I sure was in shock. It all happened so fast.

When we stopped having Christmas there, that’s when I think I kind of lost touch with everybody. Mom always said that Grandma was the glue that brought us together, and I really started to see that she was right. We would have some gatherings here and there, but it wasn’t reliable.

Grandma was tough stuff. Even when she fell and broke her hip, she was able to recover and move back into her house after some time. Not everybody is that strong. She stayed in that house until she was 95, with help, which is pretty awesome. She had recovered from more things than I thought possible. But finally, the end came and she was gone.

There’s definitely going to be a void there. In the last few years, I started calling to check on her more often, and visiting when I could, especially when I knew she was all alone at the house for a big chunk of the day. I hope I made up for the years when I would never call, and only come to visit when we all showed up for some special occasion. I guess it must have meant something, because when someone would mention me asking about her, Grandma would chuckle and say something like “Oh that little turkey.” It doesn’t matter how old I am, I guess I always would be “the little turkey” to Grandma. I’m glad I got to see her one last time after Christmas, and I’m glad we had a good visit.

Now she’s gone. Another pillar is gone. I know I’m lucky to have had her around this long, not all of us have that chance. I can only hope that I can be as resilient as she was, and maybe I can hope to learn to bring people together like she did. I sure as heck can’t cook or host parties like she did, but maybe I can do something else. I think we’ll all miss Grandma in our own way.