My Grandma Died Yesterday

This is a personal posting.

Yesterday my grandmother passed away.  She was 93.

The funeral is tomorrow in Detroit and I'm not even able to go, because of too many work obligations.  Here is what I asked my mom to say on my behalf:

I can only speak to her as I knew her, as my grandmother, through the last third of her life.  But if ever there was the platonic ideal form of a grandma realized in the material world, it was her.  She loved her family unconditionally, and with all of her being.  She lived to support and nurture and feed us, and to revel in our existence and presence.  When I think of pure unconditional love and support, I have always thought, and I will always think, of her.  

My grandma really was like that.  She really did say "Eat mamalah, eat."  I once had a dream where secretly everyone I knew was conspiring against me, except her.  She was the one who was truly loyal.

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She was born in Rogers Park, on the far North Side of Chicago.  She met my grandfather at a USO dance shortly before WW2, and they moved to Biloxi, Mississippi where my grandpa was going through officers' training.  Having come from Chicago and Detroit, respectively, they were completely unadapted to the climate of the Gulf Coast and, as she later recalled, spent all of their time sitting still.

There was a tradition where there was a sort of 'coming out' ball in Biloxi for the officers' wives, and she was introduced by the announcer with "Ladies and gentlemen, the Jewess."  Those were less PC times, to put it mildly!  Ironically, I would posit there was less actual antisemitism in the hearts of those Southern aristocrats in 1941 than there is today in the heart most of the people at Daily Kos.  Certainly there was less than in the heart of any person who recommends a diary by David Harris Gershon.

My mom was born while my grandfather was in Europe for the War, and then her two brothers followed over the next 11 years.  My grandparents built a midcentury suburban existence back in my grandfather's hometown of Detroit, and lived in that melieu, playing cards with the neighbors long after everyone had moved to condos in farther flung suburbs or Florida and they were no longer neighbors.  That's when I came along and how I remember her, always with a story of cards or mah-jhong, reveling in having a grandson, telling me stories, showing me how to cook, playing restaurant or library or whatever games we could come up with.

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Her death was not a surprise in the slightest.  She had the most gradual fade-out from life possible, due to vascular dementia.  About 15 years ago it was clear that something might be wrong neurologically, as she began walking with a strange gait.  About ten years ago she started becoming very forgetful, not remembering what had been said even a few minutes before, and forgetting basic details from her life.  By five years ago she did not remember many peoples' names, although she did still 'know' the people - it was just that the name had been erased from her memory.  Three years ago when I visited, my grandpa and the home health care aid managed with difficulty to get her out of bed.  She looked at me and pointed and said "Who is that guy?"  It was a very sad moment for me.  By two years ago she was in a vegetative state.  So it has been two years that she's been dead to the world.

Now she's officially dead, in the way that the coroner defines it.  The difference isn't really consequential, but it is the symbolic end of an era.  Never again will I have a grandmother around.

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I'm going to Israel in two weeks.  I am trying to figure out how to tie that in, what I could do of significance for her memory while there.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.