I Miss Grampa

Grammie Titcomb and Prema

There is a history of my mother’s and her mother’s older years that I joined to the wound I brought into this lifetime to heal—my wounding of abandonment joined to their wounding of loss, sadness, and possible despair.

My mother succumbed to Alzheimer's in her 70s—leading to my father’s necessary decision to put her in a nursing home. In her marriage, she’d known a glass top dining table by a painting of three irises—the first art he’d bought her. Now for eight years her meals were in a lovely room—but not with the objects and people she chose. Each time he visited, she cried when he left.

My Grammie's one-room schoolhouse students called her Mrs. "Ticcum," finding her strict but caring. Grammie lived alone for twenty-seven years after Grampa’s heart attack. While her earliest words I remember as a girl are "There’s warm doughnuts in the kitchen" her last, on my infrequent visits, were "I miss Grampa."

When my second husband died, I knew that how I behaved was my compass—and my daughters'. I could appreciate him and feel gratitude for what we’d had, or grieve him over-long and know loss. I was able to make what I believe is the higher choice.

My realization is, "As souls we take on birth, bringing a wound to be healed or a lesson to be learned that may happen through the history of others as well as come from within."

"Grammie, plump around the middle in a bib-apron over her housedress, came down the steps, hurrying across the yard in her black, heeled shoes with laces, smiling and hugging, her eyes twinkling behind gold rimless glasses. “What have you young’uns been up to? There’s doughnuts!” And in a minute I was in the kitchen. My fingers sticky. My teeth pulling open the warm, brown crust. My mouth watering with sweetness."*

*A Flower for God

Simplicity

Mr. Spence, whom I had for seventh grade science, has remained my favorite school teacher. Because of him, I can identify cirrus, cumulus, and stratus clouds—cirrus, the fish bones announcing a weak cold-front; or cumulus, scooped into big, downy, soft mountains; and stratus as fog or rain glimmering in streetlights or running down windows.

Virginia Cramer, Artist, Science Teacher, Organic Gardener

I need simplicity in instruction. Virginia says, "Look, Prema," and I see my sister-in-law’s hands crowded with her discovery of purple beans. We walk past raised, organic beds and duck under the grape arbor where she uses a spray with neem oil from trees like those growing at my compound in India—linking us.

In spirituality, I seek plain words and keep mine as ordinary as possible. When I read, "For real spiritual service the disciple … when met with aggression … should be like the football that is kicked, for the very kicking raises it aloft and propels it onward till the goal is reached,"* I think of my high school days. As a baton twirler I went to every football game and so know how the football soars off the placekicker's foot to pass between the goal posts. I look at anger directed at me as benefiting me spiritually—if I can just listen and—even this consciously—be grateful.

My realization is, "Some books on spirituality are difficult to understand and interpret for daily living—but truth can also be found in everyday words and examples."

*Life at its Best, Meher Baba

View Virginia Cramer's work at www.virginiacramer.com.

Smoothing, Softening, Mellowing, and Blending

Daughter and grandchildren at 2013 Boston Marathon

From the screened porch where we were eating, I could see our rough grass and scrub oaks and pines, and along the sand road, the undergrowth of bayberry bushes where gray-blue berries were at last visible.

Suddenly, a mewling, scrawny black cat with white under the chin leaped into view, putting its claws through the mesh—startling us into turning our eyes to it and then to the hot chicken on our plates. I looked at my husband. We paused. Our older daughter already had a rescued cat. And now Mellow, inexplicably named as such by our younger daughter, became hers.

As my counseling practice grew, I experienced more deeply the pain people brought. Then, one day, I heard as a thought, smoothing, softening, mellowing, and blending, feeling myself to be "smoothed, softened, mellowed, and blended" in that moment. I have kept those words with an effort to be them, as best as I can, in my effect on others—and also kept a curious wondering about a black and white cat, from years ago, named Mellow.

This year, twelve years since I heard those four words, my daughter, the one who named Mellow, has qualified for the Boston Marathon. I’d told her if she ever qualified for that race, I’d come from India. My brother, who once ran the race himself, said I could stay at his home as long as I liked—provided that I blended in. Smiling, I wrote him back the other three words.

My realization is, "The words we choose to define ourselves with may be wind at our back—helping."