It's been 28 years now since the first time I met my grandmother. This photo was taken during our first visit in late October of 1981. That's my son Jerry in the red, and Justin in the blue.
Grandma P. was born and raised in London, England. Although her physician father wanted her to go to school and study pharmacy she said she was too busy doing the Charleston to concentrate on her studies. She married a handsome, charming guy she met on a tennis court and married him against the wishes of her family. She and her husband, a salesman of household goods, lived an unconventional life together during the 1930s, moving from seaside place to seaside place. Because of the depression it was easy to find places to stay. "You could go wherever you wanted and immediately be given the best accommodations," my grandmother said.
During World War II my grandfather was called up to train pilots for the RAF. He and my grandmother lived in Cambridge during this time, but their eight children were evacuated to the countryside for the duration. When asked about the war years my grandmother always recalled them fondly. She remembered it as an exciting time with lots of interesting people and good-looking men in uniform. "Lots of handsome Americans."
But after the war her life fell apart. She and my grandfather divorced. She was left with nothing but a houseful of children, and had to go to work for the first time in her life. In 1955, when her youngest child was 14, she emigrated to the United States. She came by way of an arrangement with a family from Brooklyn. They paid her way over and she promised to work for them for a year as their housekeeper. After that year she got a job as a hotel desk clerk in Manhattan and an apartment of her own.
My grandmother was the kind of person who thrived in big cities. She loved the theater, movies, books, art, and interesting people. We had a lot in common, but I didn't get to know her until I was an adult.
Her daughter, my mother, had come to the states in 1950 to work as a nanny and eventually ended up in Las Vegas, unmarried and pregnant. Even though it was an unconventional thing to do in those days, my mother decided to keep me. But when I was eight months old she was killed in a car accident.
Taken in by a childless couple who never legally adopted me and never told me I wasn't biologically their daughter, I accidentally discovered the truth when I was twelve.
Grandma P. visited me when I was a little girl, but I didn't know who she was, and I don't remember those visits. I wrote her a letter when I was 13 and she wrote back, but that was the only contact I had with her.
It wasn't until the birth of my twin sons that my longing for biological relatives grew strong. I discovered my grandmother was living in Chicago, just three hours away from where I was living then, in Kalamazoo Michigan. Those first phone calls and letters were incredible to me, and when I picked her up at the train station in Kalamazoo that October for our first visit I was so nervous!
I think it was an advantage to my relationship with my grandmother that I didn't meet her until I was an adult. If I'd known her all my life I would have taken her for granted. But as it was we kept up a regular correspondence and I visited her often in Chicago. She was a little white-haired dynamo. Constantly on the go. She loved the city and cultural events, and complained about her elderly neighbors who did nothing but sit inside their apartments all day.
We were a lot alike, and I miss her more and more as time goes by. By knowing my grandmother I became more known to myself. I understood myself better. And now I sometimes use her as a gauge and a guidepost, in the same way people use their parents when they say things like, "I sound just like my mother." Or, "I'm becoming my mother." This is most often said in reference to behaviours that aren't necessarily desirable, but seem inevitable - like when I notice myself becoming more and more opinionated and judgemental. My grandmother wasn't naturally warm and nurturing, though she softened as she aged. She began saying "Love you," at the end of phone conversations, something that always took me by surprise.
"I never asked anyone for advice," she once said. "Not that that's a good thing. I've made terrible mistakes, but I've done them all on my own."
This is one of my all time favorite macro abstract photos. I call it groove and I think it's pretty groovy. Taken at the junkyard in my hometown, it's part of some discarded, rusting machinery. I think the colors are really beautiful and I love that curving groove.
