The last time I saw Grandma

Yesterday was my grandmother's yahrzeit. Around the time she died, I wrote in my journal about my last visit with her. I wanted to publish it but couldn't really work on it. These days publishing is so much easier. But I'm not sure where my journal is.

And I'm still afraid, perhaps more afraid because this is more public than some small lesbian journal. A friend describes the "rolling the grave factor" and how she will do things that would cause her parents to roll once, but not more than once.

My grandmother was not shy to state her opinions. But I'm not sure I can convey the love and the pathos of our last meeting, or do justice to who she was when I describe it.

So let me start here - I had one grandparent for 22 years. Grandma was larger than life in part because encounters with her never ended there - they were always the subject of extended family conversations, often long after the visit and certainly for the first week or so. A certain amount of decompression was always necessary, and analyzing, describing and talking about Grandma was a family pastime.

Grandma was formidable. My dad explained to me that she had strong opinions but no higher education and that when one doesn't have higher education, convention becomes more important. I'm sure that's part of it. Grandma left school to work at either 12 or 14 - my aunt says it was age 12. But prior to that also, Grandma was highly alert for what it would take to succeed in America and absorbed every possible lesson available. I wrote more about this at her yahrzeit last year - you'll find it under family history.

Grandma lived to be 93. In the last few years of her life, she lost some of her fight. It was a great relief and at the same time very painful to see. Grandma had always been able to shoot to the heart, as she did when she said to me when I was in college, "you should get Judy your sister to show you how to put on make up so you can get more boyfriends" and when I said, "I have plenty of boyfriends Grandma" she had the perfect retort "yes, but they aren't Jewish."

But at the end, the zingers were gone. The stories were gone. I went to see her in Florida in 1995 and I knew it would be the last time I saw her. I gathered my courage, and I told her about Alen.

It goes without saying that Grandma was homophobic, with the reflexive homophobia of her generation and of someone who cared so much for convention. The gender issues raised by the women's movement were a constant challenge to her, along with her career-oriented daughter-in-law (my mom). When my brother and sister went down to visit her and my brother was about 11 or 13, Grandma said he should not use creme rinse on his hair and told my mom it would make him gay.

So talking to Grandma took some courage on my part. It went something like this, "Grandma I've met someone I want to share my life with, it's a woman, her name is Alen. We are going to have a wedding. I hope you will come."

"Grandma, remember so-and-so, who I brought to Florida a few years ago. You really liked her. She was also my girlfriend. I'm a lesbian."

I don't remember the responses to this part, but they weren't real positive.

At one point I said, "Look Grandma, you have lots of different kinds of people in your family. You have lawyers, you have dentists, you have lesbians". Grandma said in a wry tone, "Well the lesbians I could do without." She didn't mean me she could do without. She meant me being a lesbian. I got that. I'll never forget her tone, her laugh. It wasn't a criticism of me, it was a statement about how much change a person can handle in nearly 100 years of living.

The next morning I tried again. "Grandma, I hope that you can be happy for me. I have found someone I want to spend my life with." She said something like, "Well I don't see why you have to have a wedding."

As I write this, I'm only thinking two things. One is how much I loved Grandma and how I still miss her after 16 years. And the other is a kind of awe of myself that (after I had been out for more than 6 years), I actually had the guts to come out to her. I'm so grateful that I got to tell her I found my life partner before she died.

Grandma, as I sat crying in bed telling you this on the morning of March whatever it was 1995, I had no doubt in my mind how much you loved me and how much I loved you. As I sit crying writing this now, I miss you still.