Sunday, August 11, 2013
Remembering Grandma
August 9, 2013
I'm sitting in the room where I last sat and talked with my grandma.
First time I've been here since she died June 5.
Tonight my grandfather prepared dinner for us, a stunning surprise,
and accidentally set a place for her. An extra chair? he said, surprised
I'd no idea last time would be the last time. The precise moment
when our 36 years together would expire. No sell by date was visible.
Everything good that now happens in my life I connect with her; doing that means
she must still be around. That's the only way days can pass.
August 10, 2013
The pace of patient walking, alongside my Poppa
down the sidewalks of the Upper East Side, she is there
not there, well, sort of there, alongside us
We walk, quiet, slow, as if her cane tapped the pavement
But it doesn't. He breathes in, my eyes try to focus, he says "whew"
And I try. Try not to shout "It's ok, she's right here."
Instead, I whisper "paciencia."
Friday, June 7, 2013
Wisdom from Grandma
Author: Sara Goldrick-Rab
My Grandma taught me to love learning and to constantly try and learn new things. In poring through my records of her (I have emails dating back 10 years, a transcribed interview, my journals, etc) I've begun to collect her wisdom. Here is the beginning of that process...
First, "education is the way to freedom," Geraldine Youcha said. That is an appropriate starting point.
On literature, writing, and language
"I started school (at Columbia University). We're reading Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." Whitman sounds adolescent to me, but I"m willing to give him a chance." (2004, age 79)
"All biography is fiction."
On a related note, "Never lie to your kids, just elide the truth."
"Wow! Wow! No more co-authors. Let freedom ring." (on my first sole-authored paper)
"I've done some nit picking, and you seem to suffer from what Hyman Kaplan called "tsplit infinitive", so I've cleaned up most of them."
"I think I've figured out what a blog is--it's often a first-person column, like the one I did for a newspaper for four years, only it's not on paper.They're great fun to write."
"Dear Phid, (I had to add a vowel so I could say it.) Congratulations!" (2004, on my graduation)
The best articles are "clear, powerful and buttressed by solid research."
On life and love
"Don't make a fuss. Do what you have to do, and then proceed."
"What I do when faced with a messy medical procedure is imagine I've stepped on a moving sidewalk and it just takes me where it's going until we get there. Then I can step off."
"Do you know the story of Charles MacArthur, Helen Hayes' husband, who, when they were courting, handed her a bag of peanuts and said , "I wish these were emeralds"? Later, for some big anniversary, he handed her a bag filled with emeralds and said, "I wish these were peanuts." Consider your peanuts emeralds in disguise."
"I've never paid attention to 'what do I want to pass on to my kids?' I figure you just live as you are, and they'll get it."
"All we can do is try to help each other get through this. Here's a big hug."
When she met my grandfather, "we fell, really, 'madly' in love, there's no other word for it."
The secret to a 60+ year marriage? "Patience and a sense of humor."
My Grandma taught me to love learning and to constantly try and learn new things. In poring through my records of her (I have emails dating back 10 years, a transcribed interview, my journals, etc) I've begun to collect her wisdom. Here is the beginning of that process...
First, "education is the way to freedom," Geraldine Youcha said. That is an appropriate starting point.
On literature, writing, and language
"I started school (at Columbia University). We're reading Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." Whitman sounds adolescent to me, but I"m willing to give him a chance." (2004, age 79)
"All biography is fiction."
On a related note, "Never lie to your kids, just elide the truth."
"Wow! Wow! No more co-authors. Let freedom ring." (on my first sole-authored paper)
"I've done some nit picking, and you seem to suffer from what Hyman Kaplan called "tsplit infinitive", so I've cleaned up most of them."
"I think I've figured out what a blog is--it's often a first-person column, like the one I did for a newspaper for four years, only it's not on paper.They're great fun to write."
"Dear Phid, (I had to add a vowel so I could say it.) Congratulations!" (2004, on my graduation)
The best articles are "clear, powerful and buttressed by solid research."
On life and love
"Don't make a fuss. Do what you have to do, and then proceed."
"What I do when faced with a messy medical procedure is imagine I've stepped on a moving sidewalk and it just takes me where it's going until we get there. Then I can step off."
"Do you know the story of Charles MacArthur, Helen Hayes' husband, who, when they were courting, handed her a bag of peanuts and said , "I wish these were emeralds"? Later, for some big anniversary, he handed her a bag filled with emeralds and said, "I wish these were peanuts." Consider your peanuts emeralds in disguise."
"I've never paid attention to 'what do I want to pass on to my kids?' I figure you just live as you are, and they'll get it."
"All we can do is try to help each other get through this. Here's a big hug."
When she met my grandfather, "we fell, really, 'madly' in love, there's no other word for it."
The secret to a 60+ year marriage? "Patience and a sense of humor."
Dear Grandma
Author: Sara Goldrick-Rab, her oldest granddaughter
Written: June 6, 2013 and read at the funeral
Dear Grandma,
Don't worry, I'll keep it short, use plain English, and just say it once.
I enjoyed you so much for the last 36 years. It's thanks to you that I know how to thrift shop, bake moist brownies and the cheesiest lasagna, know how to appreciate the flaky crust of a sour cherry strudel and a proper English tea, feel appropriately guilty when having too many cocktails or paying full price, and always make sure I'm wearing sensible shoes.
Even more importantly, you are the woman who very directly informed me that having it all-- a full-time career and full-time motherhood--required hiring good help and getting some perspective. You allowed me time to realize you were right, and didn't lord it over me when I finally did.
But incredibly, you also set the mark for my effort to do work that matters, that reaches regular people, and that merits mention in the New York Times. Whenever I have achieved something of note, one of my very first thoughts has been of the pride I know you'll take in it.
You bought out the newsstand when I appeared on the cover of the Times, you told me that goats nursed babies too when my breasts ached from nursing your great-grandkids, you walked me down the aisle at my wedding and made sure I knew the guy I was marrying was a gem, you never missed singing to me on my birthday even when it was to my voicemail, and you loved me and loved me and always with such respect.
I will never, ever get over you Grandma. Dorothy Parker said she'd never gotten one perfect rose. I got one perfect Grandma.
Sara
Written: June 6, 2013 and read at the funeral
Dear Grandma,
Don't worry, I'll keep it short, use plain English, and just say it once.
I enjoyed you so much for the last 36 years. It's thanks to you that I know how to thrift shop, bake moist brownies and the cheesiest lasagna, know how to appreciate the flaky crust of a sour cherry strudel and a proper English tea, feel appropriately guilty when having too many cocktails or paying full price, and always make sure I'm wearing sensible shoes.
Even more importantly, you are the woman who very directly informed me that having it all-- a full-time career and full-time motherhood--required hiring good help and getting some perspective. You allowed me time to realize you were right, and didn't lord it over me when I finally did.
But incredibly, you also set the mark for my effort to do work that matters, that reaches regular people, and that merits mention in the New York Times. Whenever I have achieved something of note, one of my very first thoughts has been of the pride I know you'll take in it.
You bought out the newsstand when I appeared on the cover of the Times, you told me that goats nursed babies too when my breasts ached from nursing your great-grandkids, you walked me down the aisle at my wedding and made sure I knew the guy I was marrying was a gem, you never missed singing to me on my birthday even when it was to my voicemail, and you loved me and loved me and always with such respect.
I will never, ever get over you Grandma. Dorothy Parker said she'd never gotten one perfect rose. I got one perfect Grandma.
Sara
Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned from Grandma
Author: Lisa Rab, granddaughter
Written: 2005 ; read at the funeral
1. Never buy retail.
2. If you're hungry, eat. Even if it's 7 a.m.
3. Always have a banana handy.
4. Books hold the secrets of the world.
5. Journalists have the best job in the world.
6. If you don't know, ask.
7. If you are wrong, admit it.
8. Write from your heart.
9. Edit carefully.
10. If it's not moldy, it's edible.
11. Hug tightly; laugh often.
12. No need to learn directions. Get lost enough, you'll find your way.
13. Love your family, love your work, and make time for both.
14. Nap.
15. Speak softly but carry a big cane.
Written: 2005 ; read at the funeral
1. Never buy retail.
2. If you're hungry, eat. Even if it's 7 a.m.
3. Always have a banana handy.
4. Books hold the secrets of the world.
5. Journalists have the best job in the world.
6. If you don't know, ask.
7. If you are wrong, admit it.
8. Write from your heart.
9. Edit carefully.
10. If it's not moldy, it's edible.
11. Hug tightly; laugh often.
12. No need to learn directions. Get lost enough, you'll find your way.
13. Love your family, love your work, and make time for both.
14. Nap.
15. Speak softly but carry a big cane.
Thoughts on the Loss of My Grandma
Author: Sara Goldrick-Rab, her oldest granddaughter
Written: Wednesday June 5, 2013
My maternal grandmother, Geraldine Youcha, died in her sleep this morning. I am 36 years old, and have enjoyed umpteen moments with her throughout my entire life, including my wedding (she and my grandfather walked me down the aisle) and the birth of my two children. And yet, incredibly, I feel utterly unprepared for this, and somehow robbed.
I know, these things are not unusual in the least. But my grandmother was entirely unusual.
She was not a milk-and-cookies, teddy bears and snuggles kind of woman. Though she did love sweets (especially ice cream, sour cherry strudel from Andre's Cafe on the Upper East Side, and scones with proper English tea), and kept a nice collection of stuffed animals (especially dogs), and her hugs were warm, she was no June Cleaver.
My grandma graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in journalism. She wrote many books and articles throughout her life, including two of some renown: Children of Alcoholism and Minding the Children: A History of Child Care in America from Colonia Times to the Present. A consummate intellect, I will remember her best for her comments to me regarding academia. In particular, I will never forget her asking,"What is this gibberish? Can't you just say it in English?" And on my chosen field, remarking that "Sociology, it seems to me, is the statement of the obvious." For the last ten years, as I work on manuscript after manuscript, I am constantly thinking of her, whether she will find it worthy and accessible and nicely written. I have long sent her my work for comment, fearful as I am of the critique but always knowing it makes me so much stronger.
One of my lifelong regrets will be my failure to write and publish my new book When America Goes to College while I still had the chance to get her feedback on it. I knew I should hurry, and I had the chance over the last several months to tell her about my hopes and plans for it. She's challenged me to ensure that I have control over what the cover looks like, and she affirmed my sense that the book should be free, or at worst cost no more than $20 to purchase. I'm sorry in advance to the publishers who will have to wrangle with me over this-- I'm not budging.
Grandma introduced me to both Dorothy Parker and William Carlos Williams when I was very young. She taught me to memorize their poems and I can still recite several. My favorite is Parker's "Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses." Grandma's brother Mel Shavelson, once a writer for Bob Hope, "finished" that poem, she told me, this way "But they passed at the lass who emptied that glass, eh Dorothy, isn't that it?"
I say this while sipping a Bloody Mary, something I'm certain Grandma wouldn't approve of but somehow feeling that judgment brings her ever more present here. No, I don't come from a line of alcoholics, she was just concerned with what she saw in the world around her and felt women in particular needed to know more about what alcohol could do to their lives. She's directly responsible for my sense of moderation at family meals, and for my careful recognition that a glass of wine has the same amount of alcohol as a shot and a beer, and I've known this forever and ever.
I know, I digress. I am writing this blog as much for me as for her, but she did come, I think, to understand the blogging a bit by the end. She always wrote these short pieces for ladies' journals, and I feel like blogs are kind of akin to that-- expressions of daily life, captured in brief. Whatever they are, I love writing them and because that means writing, and brings me to write often, it means being closer to Grandma.
Two weeks ago I shared a sour cherry strudel (and a poppy seed one) with her at 11 pm on a Tuesday night before she went to bed. She remarked how flaky the pastry was, and how talented the chef. Last week I was there again in New York for business, and experienced administering her eyedrops for the first time, I recall dropping them in and exclaiming "Oh this isn't hard, just like I did to my cat!" and she giggled a little. I also watched her endeavor to change for bedtime and it hurt so incredibly much to see her strength trying to peek through while worn down in a body that wasn't half the woman she still was. She knew it, and more than once told me when I asked how she was: "Well. I am."
Last night, I asked my daughter if she wanted to tell Grandma a story. It was hard for her to read, her eyes were bothering her, so I did an audio recording on my phone. Annie said "yes" right away and proceeded to give a 5-minute long monologue, a story for Grandma. She'd never done anything like it before, made up a real story out of the blue, going on and on. I felt so thrilled that Grandma would hear this, and texted it to my Poppa immediately. But it was just after 11 pm in New York and I just knew she'd gone to bed. I said, "Oh well, I'm glad it'll be there in the morning for her" and lay there joyfully as Annie fell asleep on me.
But not forgotten
Dorothy Parker
I think, no matter where you stray,
That I shall go with you a way.
Though you may wander sweeter lands,
You will not soon forget my hands,
Nor yet the way I held my head,
Nor all the tremulous things I said.
You still will see me, small and white
And smiling, in the secret night,
And feel my arms about you when
The day comes fluttering back again.
I think, no matter where you be,
You'll hold me in your memory
And keep my image, there without me,
By telling later loves about me.
That I shall go with you a way.
Though you may wander sweeter lands,
You will not soon forget my hands,
Nor yet the way I held my head,
Nor all the tremulous things I said.
You still will see me, small and white
And smiling, in the secret night,
And feel my arms about you when
The day comes fluttering back again.
I think, no matter where you be,
You'll hold me in your memory
And keep my image, there without me,
By telling later loves about me.
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