Essays & Articles
Memories
of Madeline
Christmas memories are a familiar medley of
fragrances, flavors, music, traditions and sentimentality. Sometimes the
memories stir embers of other recollections. And so, at Christmas time,
more than any other time of the year, thoughts of my paternal
grandmother come to mind. Perhaps it is because for most of my early
years Christmas and Thanksgiving were the only times Grandma Madeline
was a part of my childhood.
Until recently, memories of those
Thanksgivings were not especially cherished in my heart's diary; not
until I realized their significance and connection to the other memories
involving Grandma Madeline.
Thanksgiving celebrations of my childhood,
from my earliest recollection until my early teens, was steadfastly a
continual repetition of a single day spent, exactly the same, year after
year. My parents, my older sister and I would dress in what other
families called their "Sunday best" (I say other families, because our
family never attended church together). In the early afternoon we would
drive to the apartment of my father's mother and stepfather, where we
would celebrate Thanksgiving.
I use the term "celebrating" loosely, for
the sober, imperturbable gathering was not a robust or stimulating event
from a child's perspective, nor, I suppose from an adult's. At my
grandparents' orderly apartment we would find their dining room table
trimmed with the finest linen, cut glass, silver and china, which had
once belonged to my great-grandmother.
My father had no siblings (his only brother
had died in childhood), therefore there were no cousins to greet my
sister and I. Those in attendance included our immediate family of four,
Grandma Madeline, my step-Grandpa Bud, and occasionally Bud's sister,
Margaret.
Thanksgiving dinner was always solely
prepared by Grandma Madeline. She never sought, nor I imagine would have
appreciated, assistance in providing the seasonal repast. One might
suppose this attitude was common with many grandmothers of her era;
those homemakers who attended faithfully and selflessly in nurturing
their families, which naturally included providing homemade goodness to
fill hungry souls.
Yet, Madeline was not a kindred spirit to
the motherly souls of her generation. She had left her sons to be raised
by her parents, and in her entire 70 plus years, had never learned how
to nurture nor to express love, at least not to the satisfaction of an
abandoned son, my father.
She was a portly woman, whose weight had no
doubt been an albatross to her spirit in early years. I've come to
recognize, as I now analyze my collection of memories pertaining to
Madeline, that throughout the years, she attempted, in her own awkward
and inexperienced way, to express her love, when she felt compelled to
do so, through food. Perhaps, as she found food to be her solace, she
believed she would use it to give solace or love to others.
And so, each year at Thanksgiving she would
spend hours alone in her kitchen, attempting to serve up her annual
offering of love. At the time I had no inclination that the meal was
more than an obligatory trip to grandma's, where I was guaranteed to
grow bored and restless, yet satisfactorily fed.
When Christmas rolled around, a time
overflowing with eager anticipation for many fortunate children,
Madeline 's love gift of food was welcomed at home - welcomed more
fondly than the pilgrim's feast had been just a month prior.
Each Christmas season Grandma Madeline
would bring her large, covered, turkey roasting pan to our home. It
would be brimming with soft homemade chocolate drop cookies and plump
chocolate chip cookies. Chocolate drop cookies are a wonderfully moist
(if made correctly) chocolate cake-like cookie, topped with a chocolate
butter cream frosting.
My father, who had an insatiable sweet
tooth, would welcome the offering eagerly. Like a naughty child he would
continually lift the lid of the turkey pan to snatch another treat. I do
believe that when he feasted on his mother's homemade baked goods, it
helped provide him with at least some traditional motherly memories of
Madeline. Or perhaps, he simply loved sweets.
An overweight child, Madeline may have felt
inferior to her older, slimmer sister, Eva. Seeking love and affection,
Madeline became pregnant and was forced to marry a man she did not love,
nor who loved her. Three years elapsed and they had another child, my
father. Admittedly Madeline did not want this second child and sought
desperate measures to abort him. Madeline never attempted to keep the
circumstances of my father's unwanted birth, and her attempts to prevent
it, a secret.
As her marriage floundered, Madeline's
parents began assuming increased responsibility for the two young boys.
After the eldest was struck by an automobile and killed, Madeline
obtained a divorce and struck out on her own, leaving behind her
remaining son to be raised by her parents. When my father was 15 years
old he left his home in Michigan and went to California to live with his
mother and step-father. He was not welcomed into their home eagerly, but
rather pensively.
I recall my father treating Madeline with
unsentimental respect. He called her mother, never mom. In spite of her
abandonment of him, he never abandoned her. He never seemed to dwell on
her lack of motherly attentiveness, yet he would grow annoyed when, in
her later years, she recounted tales of his childhood which she somehow
had created in her mind. Grandma allowed herself to forget, or so it
seemed, that she had not been a doting or participating mother.
And so the few, admittedly scarce, shows of
mother love came in the guise of a roasting pan full of homemade
cookies. Dad accepted them graciously, even appreciatively. Although he
never discussed it, and I doubt he ever thought about it, those cookies
were more than a familiar Christmas tradition. It was grandma's way of
saying I love you.
Christmas didn't stop with cookies. Each
year Madeline prepared elaborate fruit cakes, tangy cheese balls and
other favorites.
My sister Lynn and I were Grandma
Madeline's only grandchildren. For years Lynn was by far the favorite.
Lynn was not only adorable, she was accommodating, sweet tempered and
simply easier to love for someone who is not accustomed to small noisy
children. I was not only a noisy child, I was unpredictable and never
easy.
But children do grow up and become
civilized adults. In my last year of college it was necessary for me to
live with my Grandma Madeline for several months. (Grandpa Bud was
deceased by this time.) I was a busy, graduating college student, soon
to be married. For the first time in her life Madeline got to know her
youngest granddaughter, and I do believe she liked me. In her attempts
to express love, she kept her pantry filled with my favorite foods, and
if I even casually mentioned a desired dish, she would promptly prepare
it.
A year or so before she died, when the
family was reminiscing over earlier culinary traditions, Dad mention how
he missed a particular Christmas dish his grandmother had prepared. The
following Christmas, Madeline attempted to duplicate her mother's
recipe, to recreate for my father a childhood memory. I never fully
realized how Grandma Madeline attempted to show love through food until
long after she was gone.
About five months before her death, my son,
Scott (Madeline's first great-grandchild), was born. He was still an
infant when the family was forced to move grandma from her spacious
two-bedroom apartment to a small one-bedroom apartment in a senior
center. I recall taking Scott, with my mother, to see his
great-grandmother. At the time I was a fully absorbed new mother, unable
to objectively consider that day's events until many years had elapsed.
Grandma was ill. We didn't know it at the
time, but she had brain cancer and would only be with us for a few more
months. Looking back, I feel a bit guilty because I was so wrapped up in
my newborn son, in the new life, that I failed to see the lonely, frail,
fading life of my grandmother, steadily slipping away.
Instead of embracing Scott or acknowledging
the miracle of life as it is passed from one generation to another,
Madeline seemed to view her great-grandson from a distance, with sad
remoteness. She watched as I attentively and lovingly changed his
diapers, nursed him from my breast and hovered, as do many new mothers.
After watching the relationship and bond
between mother and child, she began speaking to me, yet more to herself.
She spoke of her childhood. She sadly recounted that she had not been
loved, as Scott was loved. She said it with longing, with loneliness
with poignant desire.
Somehow she had forgotten her own son, whom
had grown up without her love, and focused only on her memories of her
loveless childhood. Never once that afternoon did she attempt to reach
out and make a connection with Scott or to express love. She was lost in
sad private memories.
I wonder about people and their memories.
How accurate they are. How perceptions can differ. I wonder about my
grandmother's childhood, what had been lacking in her parent's nurturing
that had made this overweight child unable to grow beyond herself and
openly express love. My father's memories of his grandparents paint a
picture of a loving, nurturing couple. What had made the two pictures so
different?
And so, at Christmas time, I fill Grandma's
roasting pan with homemade cookies, as she did. My sister makes her
fruit cake and cheese ball, and this next Christmas I suppose it's time
to teach my daughter how to make Chocolate Drop Cookies. And I am
grateful that our family was able to break a cycle, able to freely show
and give love, to nurture, to parent. But I will continue to be
sentimental over a roasting pan full of cookies, because no matter how
it is said, even the awkward, the silent, I love you touches my heart.