Carols for Grandma Connie

Halloween has just passed; a particularly potent one this year what with the blue full moon, time change, strongly charged emotions in the air already from the election, and of course the pandemic making everyone yearn for a moment of celebration. Thanksgiving, a time to set yourself into a mindset of gratitude and love, is next. And for me, the Christmas season has begun. I celebrate Thanksgiving as a Christmas holiday, with the spirit of the season gently ramping up over the next few weeks until Santa in the parade on Thanksgiving morning brings the full season upon me.

Because Halloween, All Hallows Eve, Samhain, is also a time to honor ancestors and remember those we’ve lost, but I am also very much feeling the warm glow and magic of the Christmas season right now, I find myself in a strange combination of emotions. And I keep thinking of a memory that combines these feelings together.

Many who know me well realize that my grandma was extremely special to me. All Grandmas are special, of course, but by any standards she was an especially remarkable woman. She raised my dad and his brother, who was born with Down Syndrome at a time when parents were advised to put such children into an institution. When her husband, my grandfather, lost the use of his legs, she took care of him as well, and started working at her church as the secretary to help support her family. She was the unspoken matriarch of our family. Everyone knew that when grandma said something, we all needed to listen. And she was sassy. Oh, so sassy. She had a veneer of quiet and meek Christian woman on top, but underneath that was a stubborn and rebellious streak that I loved to see peeking through.

When my grandpa and my uncle had both passed, and grandma was getting up there in years, she moved in with my parents, and my husband and I would take her out to dinner every Friday night, relishing the chance to spend time with her. On her 90th birthday, my parents and Tom and I threw her a “Wild 90” party and the whole family came. We hired my friends at Ironwood Wolves, who brought a wolf and a fox pup to the party, and took photos of everyone.

Grandma started to talk to mom and dad about end of life plans, as one should do when one has reached 90-years-old. She told them that she didn’t want to die in a hospital, and would rather pass at home. It all seemed very theoretical until Thanksgiving of 2017, when she wasn’t feeling well enough to even leave her bedroom for the meal.

Over the next few weeks, her health rapidly declined. Mom and dad had hospice care to help them some of the time, but for the vast majority of the time, her care fell to them, and it was emotionally and physically exhausting and draining. We only lived five minutes away from their house, so we offered to help whenever they might need it, 24/7.

One day in early December, mom called and told me she could use a rest. She was absolutely worn thin, and needed just an hour or two in mid-day to be able to maybe sleep a little bit. By this point, grandma was mostly unresponsive, and she asked me to simply sit in her room with her and talk to her. I sat there in an office chair as she sat on her little loveseat, eyes closed and oxygen hooked up so that she could breathe, and I talked about how I’d been doing. But after a while I ran out of things to say.

So I started to sing.

I sang every Christmas carol I could remember, and having grown up in the church, and loving Christmas as much as I do, that’s a lot of songs. I sang Christmas songs she might or might not know, like “In the Deep Midwinter,” and classics like “Away in a Manger.” Every now and then when I sang a song she might have remembered from her childhood, I would hear her make small noises.

Mom and dad told me that as she prepared to pass, she sometimes would be coherent enough to speak, but when that happened, she was often confused and imagined she was still a child. I wanted to bring some small comfort to the child who had turned into the grandma I so loved and adored.

It didn’t feel like very long until mom came back in the room. She hadn’t been able to sleep, but greatly appreciated the moment of rest anyway. I’m not sure how long it had been, but my throat felt a little sore and dry. Grandma passed away a week or so later, and I’ve missed her every day since.

Now, a beautiful and bittersweet melancholy comes upon me sometimes at this time of the year. I still love Christmas songs, but when I sing along to them, at random, completely unpredictably and unexpectedly, my throat will knot up and my eyes will fill with tears. I will remember singing Christmas songs for my grandma, and how much I love and miss her.