Ode to Deed

My Gram died on Tuesday morning. All of her children and my grandfather were there with her when it happened. The years of watching Alzheimer’s chip away at a woman who was once stubborn, strong-willed, and boisterous are over. Her death may have been expected, but it still doesn’t end the grief. I’m heartbroken that I’m not there to hug my grandpa and tell him I love him and how he did such a wonderful job caring for her these last few years. I’m sad that I’m not there to tell my dad and my aunts that I’m sorry they have lost their mother. So, what I’m left with here in India is to tell my daughter about the great grandmother she’ll never meet.

And what do I tell her? The first memory that came to me was the hundreds of times I must have made Deed sing Irving Berlin’s “Easter Parade” because of the way she sang the “On the avenue, fifth avenue” lyric. Do I start there? Or do I start with her life? How she experienced so many losses – her parents, when she was young, and her daughter, to a motorcycle accident. I should surely tell Evelyn how Gram survived polio, but it left her with difficulty swallowing and back and leg pain. But perhaps I should begin with how my grandmother affected me. How I saw her unshakeable faith in Christ keep her spirits up when things were tough, and it was that same faith that I know she credits with not only saving her soul but also her sanity here on Earth. How she’s the reason I love to wear bright colors, sequins, and gaudy jewelry. And she fueled my secret love of silly horror and science fiction movies. And she taught me to feel no shame in putting up my Christmas decorations in October. For real, kids would come trick-or-treating at her house, and her Christmas tree would be decorated for all to see.

I could tell Evelyn about how Gram’s house was decorated with fake flowers, photographs of her children and grandchildren, seashells, sandcastles, and lighthouses. How she grieved for her cat, Andre, for years after he died. She loved the beach so much that, even after she couldn’t walk, when we would go to the Jersey shore every summer, she would sit and watch the waves crash on the beach and do nothing else. How she loved McDonald’s food so much that it caused a long running joke in our family about how she would crawl up a mountain just to get a Big Mac (“Day One”). I would want to tell Evelyn about my grandparents’ marriage, and how it went backwards. They acted like newlyweds these last few years, after my grandmother’s stubbornness began to fade. Gram would giggle like a little schoolgirl whenever Gramp would say, “Di, you look so beautiful.”  Those moments were enough to leave the rest of us completely speechless.

I could tell her all these things, but I still feel bad that she will never truly know my grandmother. She won’t witness her personality; that what she lacked in tact, she made up for in love. Even my husband, who had met Gram several times, didn’t get to meet the full Diane Serafini. They won’t meet the woman who, when asked a murky philosophical question, would bark out a black or white answer with a Bible verse to back it up. Evelyn won’t get to know, and laugh at, Gram’s tendency to exaggerate things (“Look at all these trees! How do they get so huuuuuuuge?”) But she will know as much as I can tell her.

I’m not sure how to end this post. My feelings are still raw and, at the same time, I feel like she died a while ago. We knew this was coming, and especially within the last week, it was just a matter of when it would happen. I suppose I could say that I have slowly said goodbye to Gram ever since she started losing herself piece by piece. In some ways, especially for her, those losses were a benefit. She was able to have a real marriage with my grandfather because they didn’t fight anymore. And she lost the ability to worry which was great because, boy, was she EVER a worrier.

I guess I’ll end this by saying that I have peace knowing that her faith in Jesus has served her well, and she is in Heaven, no longer in pain from her twisted back and leg. Here are the lyrics to her favorite hymn.

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suff’ring and shame;
And I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.

So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a crown.

Oh, that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,
Has a wondrous attraction for me;
For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above
To bear it to dark Calvary.

In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
A wondrous beauty I see,
For ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
To pardon and sanctify me.

To the old rugged cross I will ever be true;
Its shame and reproach gladly bear;
Then He’ll call me some day to my home far away,
Where His glory forever I’ll share.