When Jess and I decided (or, maybe it was more like I decided, but Jess agreed) to host Thanksgiving at our apartment in 2007, I couldn't contain the satisfaction of being able to show off to three ladies that I could pull this thing off without messing up royally: My little sister Ro, my Mom, and my Grandma.
Now, the first two weren't too much to worry about. My mom being my mom and my sister being my sister, I was absolutely certain that they would jump in as needed. Mashed potatoes? "Nope, you're not doing those right..." and so my mom would jump in. Making a veggie tray? "You're kind of slow at this, let ME do it..." and so my sister would jump in. Always coddling me, the two of them.
My bigger concern was my grandma. I spent my whole life trying to impress her, so I had to prep Jess a little bit: "If you think I'm picky, if you think I'm intense, well wait until you meet my grandma. I'm basically fruit cut right off that tree!" Obsessive compulsive disorder eased in on my end and with that, Thanksgiving preparations began. I found myself at Johnnies Foodmaster making sure we had the perfect amount of light cream (not half & half, not heavy cream, light cream), getting the right kind of tea bags, and inspecting dozens of custard pies to find one that looked amazing, (hopefully) tasted amazing, yet looked homemade enough so that I can pass it off as something coming from the fruits of my labor. The pie was important; if there was one thing that I had learned over the course of my then-25 years in being, it was that custard pie at Thanksgiving meant a great deal to my grandma. If there wasn't one, I'd be sure to hear about it sometime, probably later in the summer or at my Aunt Lynn's Yankee Swap at Christmastime. I wouldn't be able to live that potential mess up down, regardless of how many cups of tea I'd make for her.
When my sister told my that my grandma died this morning, that Thanksgiving, oddly enough, was the first thing I thought about. I immediately thought about how lucky I was to have been able to host her at our place. And moreover, to have her let me know that I was doing a good job, that she was enjoying herself, that she was happy to watch me grow into a young man, and that I finally found myself a nice girl.
As to that last point, I let out a nice chuckle then and did this morning too. I had to explain to my grandma that Jess wasn't my girlfriend. So then she asked "oh, your soon new wife?" To which I responded -- shaking my head, muted laugh, all the while carefully placing sweet potato muffins, custard pie, and dark turkey cuttings into her take-away bag -- "Nahhh, Jess has Alex" but that she was one of my best friends from Notre Dame and, for the time being, my roommate while she was at Suffolk for law school.
She didn't believe me. Amidst all of her hard-headness, she still had this playful side that border-lined tricky mind games: "Oh, that's what you say now. You don't have to lie to me. Here." She'd palm a $20 bill to me "for the date and for the dinner" when we dropped her off at her apartment in the Charlestown Projects. I ended up buying a couple of bottles of Red Truck Wine with that. I never really told her (and I guess I can't now) that I wasn't dating Jess. I still laugh because here my grandma was, trying to set me up with my roommate! Unbelievable.
- Page from Mrs. Bee's Gardens public service booklet, 1984
The last time I saw my grandma at the Winthrop House -- when I finally mustered up the courage to get out the car in the parking lot without hoping to God that she was asleep -- my grandma couldn't place me immediately. Was I William or the other William or was I Sean? But she sure remembered that Thanksgiving, apologized profusely, and then continued on about how much of a great time she had at our place.
The custard pie came up. She didn't care too much for the sweet potato muffins, but man, with that custard pie, she relayed to me about how she kept on cutting smaller pieces of the pie until it was gone. She indicated much she really wished she could have a piece of it now. We got decaf tea (although I don't think she knew it was decaf) and I pushed her around in her wheelchair. She asked "what was cooking," so I told her about my many trials and far more prevalent errors related to my spring gardening venture; about how the Illinois bar exam was in 72 days and that I was secretly praying for a cold and rainy summer; about how I was finally doing it -- moving to Chicago -- but that I secretly had butterflies about leaving Boston and my friends and family and everything I knew here; about how I wish I could do more for my parents because I secretly cared about them and loved them immensely, even though I never told them that nearly enough. I told her about how I had a couple of her pamphlets from Mrs. Bee's Gardens at my house and that I was planning on getting a set of them framed because, for one reason or another, the whole thought of those gardens in the Charlestown Projects influenced me in more ways that I imagined. Those gardens planted the seed of humanity inside of me and helped me remember -- in a metaphorical sense -- the roots and sacrifices from which I was able to spring forth and stand where I was standing today.
I was getting too nostalgic. She immediately changed gears: "so, now you're still an attorney, right?"
"Yup," I said.
"Good, because I need a good lawyer. I always thought your father would be a good lawyer. I think Stevie Pothier became a lawyer. Do you remember Stevie Pothier?" I kind of nodded, and she pressed me on to carefully pushing her and her wheelchair. "Now, here, wait a minute."
Now if you didn't know my grandma, she had this way of carrying herself as the Queen Bee; the penultimate politician; a generous caregiver to others who was often a relentlessly tough nut to her own kids and grandkids; the quintessential dreamer; a woman who still thought about some day owning a horse farm in the rolling hills of Connecticut so that all of her 27 or so grandkids could some day learn to ride; the baker of the most amazing Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies I've ever experienced to date; the curious storyteller of Charlestown urban legends, which, even though I now know are not true, still haunt the 10-year old inside of me. Sometimes, I honestly thought that she was crazy. Other times, I knew that she knew what she was doing. And most of the time, even though I knew that I wasn't her favorite grandchild, I was thankful that I got to know at least one of my grandparents.
"I want you to meet my grandson. He's a big shot lawyer in town."
I grinned and sheepishly waived, shook my grandma's friend's hand, and Mrs. Bee kept on going. "He made me this custard pie last Thanksgiving that beats what crap-ola they feed us here. Next time maybe he visits, his wife will make him bring one with him." She turned to me and offered me her trademark grin--the grin that made me pretty certain that she still had the kicks in her. I just shook my head and laughed a little bit. Unbelievable, grandma. Unbelievable.
Edna Boyle, Charlestown, Mass.
1929-2009
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