Grandma.

“She’s going to see things we can’t even begin to imagine.”

That was my mom, talking about her mom, on the deck of our Wisconsin lake house. My grandma was right there with us. It was one of those evenings when the happy hour menu inspired philosophical discussions of science and religion, of life and death. My grandmother had told us about a vision she had as a teenager in which Jesus appeared to her. We asked her what He said. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I said I would never talk about it.”

She was so moved by her own recounting of the story that it was hard to deny the power of her belief. My mom got emotional about the prospect of Heaven, prompting her to make the aforementioned declaration.

Of course, the irony was that my mom would see those things first, whatever they may be. For all the years she had worried about watching my grandma grow old, it was now her own health my mom saw vanishing before her eyes. She would hang up after a call with my grandma and say, “Well, she’s doing great, that stubborn old goat.”

And stubborn she was, but in the most kindhearted way. She liked things the way she liked them, but only if it didn’t bother you. Of course, this passive-aggression often drove us nuts (“If you all want to stop at McDonald’s, that’d be fine with me”), but you could never stay mad at her. She’d shrug her shoulders, stick out her tongue and giggle, as if she’d gotten away with some mischievous prank.

When we’d go out for dinner, she’d immediately look for fried shrimp on the menu. (“Oh, I just love that.”) Then, when the shrimp arrived, she’d carefully peel the breading off each one. By the end of the meal, there was a little pile on the edge of her plate. “Mom,” my mother would say, “why don’t you just order broiled shrimp?” “Because, I like the fried.”

Her obstinance carried over into her medical care. One Christmas, the year my mom was diagnosed, my grandma ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. When my mom would recall that story, my grandma’s memory was different. “I don’t think I really had that.” Her blood sugar in the hospital was over 300. “They say I’m diabetic, but that’s not really true.” At her funeral, I was waiting for her to come down and whisper, “They say I’m dead, but what does the doctor know?”

My brother couldn’t attend the service, but he wrote a beautiful eulogy that recalled many of the same memories I have of time spent at my grandparents’ house as a child. They lived near O'Hare airport, about 45 minutes from our house, so we’d often go for Sunday dinners or stay there when my parents were out of town. It was like stepping back a generation: We’d play with old Matchbox cars, eat lunch at Superdawg, pick up my grandpa from the train station. We’d sleep in the same twin beds my mom, aunt and uncle did, under the same zigzag bedspreads.

My grandma had a set menu of weekly dinners. Wednesday was spaghetti, Friday was tuna casserole, Saturday was goulash, and Sunday was a roast. Dessert was usually vanilla ice cream with Hershey’s syrup. On holidays, she’d get up at 7 a.m. to put the turkey or lamb into a 200-degree oven for about 8 to 9 hours. My dad joked that it was the easiest meat ever to carve, because all you had to do was poke it once and it would collapse into shreds.

But I can still see the stove, taste the mashed potatoes, see her scraping the gravy together from the drippings in the pan. She always put a foil-wrapped chocolate turkey or Easter bunny in front of each of the kids’ plates. She knew I liked 7Up, so there was always one in the fridge. She did whatever she could to make those days special, and she succeeded.

Through her gentle demeanor, you would never guess the hardships she had faced in her life. Her parents were born in Croatia, and she would tell us how her father had sent her mother to America first until they could get enough money for him to join them. His brother had already come over and settled in Melcher, Iowa, where my grandma was born in 1925. She talked about how special it was when her uncle would bring them a whole butchered cow from his farm, because it meant they’d be eating well for weeks.

She worked as a telephone operator at what everyone then simply knew as “the phone company,” where she met my grandpa. They got married right before he left to serve in World War II, but fortunately his enlistment started in June 1945, so he never faced active combat. Later, her father was diagnosed with colon cancer. Treatments back then were not what they are today, my mom told me, and he had been in terrible pain. One night, the family went out for dinner, but he had decided to stay back. When they got home, they saw cleaning solution on the counter. He had used it to clean his gun. My grandfather found him upstairs and physically blocked my grandma from entering the room. “I’m going to have to live with that image the rest of my life. I don’t want you to.”

Late into my mom’s illness, we had the opportunity for my grandma, aunt and uncle to all visit the house together. There was definitely a sense of dread and melancholy that hung over the room, but everyone tried to stay positive. Finally, as I was helping my mom into her wheelchair to go to the bathroom, my grandma cried out. “Oh, Lindy. What’s happened to my Lindy?” We had never heard that nickname before. But either way, it was clear my grandma wasn’t seeing a mom, a wife, a sister. She was seeing her little girl.

I had never appreciated my grandmother as her own woman, as a mother, until that moment. I had always just seen her as an extension of my mom, not the other way around.

I’m grateful that in the past few years, I got to know my grandma as a friend. She was fun to talk to on the phone, with an easy laugh and an optimistic energy. Like my mom, she loved movies and TV, so we always had something to talk about there. (“You know Kelly Ripa, she’s married to that Mark Consuelos.”)  

One of my favorite exchanges with her was from a couple of years ago, when she was living independently at a retirement community:

Grandma: “There’s a new man here who just moved in and he speaks Croatian. So he and I speak Croatian together at dinner, and now all of my friends call him my boyfriend.”

Me: “Well, maybe he likes you!”

Grandma: “NO. I’m an old lady. What would he want with me?”

Me: "He’s living there, too, so he’s not any spring chicken.”

Grandma: “He was in the war. He carries around a picture of himself in his uniform. He told me he’s going to a Knights of Columbus dance and wants to ask one of the other women.”

Me: “I think he should ask you.”

Grandma: “NO. I’m just an old lady. I don’t think of him like that.”

Me: “OK.”

Grandma: “Listen, kid, I gotta go. It’s almost dinnertime and I still have to fix my hair.”

A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from my aunt that Grandma had fallen and broken her hip. She had surgery and was in the hospital. My uncle gave me the number, but warned me that it would be hard to hear her through the oxygen mask.

I called her room and the phone rang and rang. Maybe she was asleep and I’ll try later, I thought. But then I thought better of it. My uncle suggested I try the nurses’ station. The wonderful woman who picked up the phone told me she needed to change my grandma’s oxygen anyway, so it would be a chance for her to take off her mask. She put the phone to my grandma’s ear.

"Hi, Grandma, it’s Chrissie.”

“Oh, Chris, I’m so tired.”

“I know, you’ve been through a lot.”

“I’m glad to hear your voice.”

“I’m glad to be talking to you!”

“Listen, I love you, and I love the little one.”

“I love you, too, Grandma.”

We talked some more about the hospital room and what she’d be having for dinner that night, but I heard the urgency in her voice. She was scared. She knew. 

I’ll forever be thankful for that last call, and that we had all just been together for her 90th birthday. Now, I picture her telling my mom all about Archie, laughing about the good ol’ days, and marveling together at the sight of things we can’t even begin to imagine.