I never called him Dad. We all always called him Ed. He called his parents Dewey and Elaine, so it was fitting that we had a Mom and an Ed. Other kids used to ask me if he was my real dad. The answer was always, "Yes, but we call him Ed."
We never called his folks Granny or Memaw or Grandaddy. Nothing of the sort. We called them Dewey and Elaine. Sometimes it was just Laine.
Elaine was not your typical grandmother. She was quite the pistol. The first time I ever saw a person shoot a bird (you know, flick you off), it was Elaine flicking me off. Not in a bad way. She was telling me how I was her middle grandchild and held up her middle finger. My brother and cousin Will are older than I, and my sister and cousin Leigh Ann are younger than I. So, yes. I was smack in the middle. I was somewhat perplexed when my mother told me not to do it too.
Elaine couldn't cook a thing. No, really. She couldn't cook at all! She had the most wonderful woman named Minnie who cooked for her. Elaine would try to make canned biscuits and sausage on Sundays, but it always tasted a little off. She made spaghetti for me once. Once is the key word.
Even though she rarely babysat us, she would always come to visit if we were sick. She brought gum. It was almost worth having strep throat to get gum from Laine.
This is one of the last times that Elaine knew who I was when I went to visit her. She had Alzheimer's.
The grandmother I knew and loved has long been gone to Alzheimer's, but I have still been very saddened by her death. I think it's partly because my dad isn't here anymore. Partly because the anniversary of his death is only a few days away. My grandfather is gone too. Only my aunt Mona remains from their nuclear family. I cannot imagine how difficult this must be for her.
Elaine always served a deli tray for Christmas dinner. We held it at her house on Christmas Eve. I remember the first year that Jay went with me to Christmas dinner at her house, he looked at me and asked, "Where's the food?" I told him, "This is it." It had never occurred to me that other folks didn't eat deli sandwiches for Christmas Eve. HA! It's been a running thing with us every year since then. I even got us a huge deli tray this past Christmas. We ate the mess out of it and joked about how proud Laine would've been of my deli spread.
Anytime one of us would do something of note, Elaine would say, "It all goes back to the paternal grandmother." So here I am. Thinking of my paternal grandmother. Knowing that for good and bad, I am who am in part because of her.
