grandma a

I forgot to post a celebratory birthday announcement for Grandma Abbatecola, who turned 85 on Dec. 28. They're all stacked back to back: Grandma Peg (91, Dec. 26), Grandma Ann (85, Dec. 28), and Marta (6, Dec. 30). A straight run of birthdays.

I was thinking of Grandma A yesterday when we drove home because I was describing her to Epp. Grandma A (birth name: Annabelle Margaret Miller), gets up early, real early. I stayed there a few times and would hear the radio alarm go off at something like 6 am. Then she would vanish to the kitchen. I might follow a little while after:

"Do you want pancakes now or later?" she would ask, standing near the kitchen sink.

"Now!" I would plop happily into a chair.

"You're like your mother, she likes to eat when she gets up," Grandma would say. "But Steven, he's like Mary. He likes to wait a while and then eat."

Grandma's house was dark and adorned with religious imagery. I found the abstract drawings of Christ in "Father Joe's room" -- where my great uncle, the Catholic priest, used to stay when in New York -- pretty intimidating when I was trying to go to sleep. "Father" Joe (who I didn't figure out was grandma's brother until I was seven or so years old) had very interesting books on his shelves. I remember one was called "Blitzkrieg" -- it was about the German invasion of Poland in 1939. He also had the old leather-bound box, the one belonging to someone named William C. Carroll, a person to whom I have never been able to figure out our relationship. Someone had been in the Civil War. There was a secret compartment to the box: a bloody 500 dollar Confederate bill. There were lots of mysteries in that room.

There were mysteries in the basement, too. Books about strange groups of men: Jesuits, Franciscans, photo albums of Italian art. Grandma could talk about these groups with some authority. The Franciscans were her favorite. Her favorite saint? St. Francis of Assisi. There is even a framed 17th century Catholic text down there somewhere. Aye, there's something old and musty down in grandma's basement. I remember from time to time I used to find toys that belonged to my uncles Joe and Bob (about 20 years older than me). Those toys seemed like artifacts from a different age. I imagined that Joe and Bob, two giants who then lived upstairs, were millions of years old.

Yes, grandma's was a very mystical place. Grandma, though? She grew up in a family of boys in the '20s and '30s in the city. She wanted to wear slacks, not skirts. I've asked her about growing up in a house full of guys (I imagine it sort of like "Our Gang" meets "Boys Town") but I am short on stories. I called her a few months back: she was watching the Yankees game. She has a New York Irish accent and talks a bit out of the side of her mouth. We used to call her brother John "Popeye" at least partially for this.

When I was at Grandma's house, I would think of my grandfather, Frank, who was dead, and who I assumed had died in the house. I knew very instinctively that he had been there, even when I was a small child. I guess he had only died about 15 years before; he had left some residual energy. Great-grandma was there too at some point. She was gray, like a ghost. She seemed to be a billion years old. Now when I see the photos of her from this time, I am surprised I see it that way. She looks puny and inoffensive.

There are lots of other memories and associations with grandma. Really rich, fattening foods. Mince meat pie. Hard sauce spiced with whiskey. Empty seltzer water bottles in the garage. The tree in the front yard that they gave her for her first mother's day in that house back in nineteen fifty-something. But the most fantastic thing about grandma is that she is still here and my daughters know who she is. Marta calls her "Mimi's Mimi." But in our family, she's basically everybody's Mimi.