Monday, July 9, 2007 at 2:02am
Grandma Hill
Column: Woman at the Well
Grandma was really old when I met her. Actually she was my great-grandmother, but I never knew her daughter, my mother's mother. She died at 36. Grandma raised her children, my mom and her sister, Hildi, from ages 12 and 2.
Grandma had a flat in Oakland, Calif., over her landlady, Mrs. Kitchen. I went to visit her there when I was very small. A yellow canary sang in a cage by the window. We played Chinese checkers and talked about life. I slept on a lumpy sofa in her small living room while a loudly ticking mantel clock slowly lulled me to sleep. To this day I love the sound of loudly ticking clocks.
At Grandma's house I was safe. I knew I was loved. She was 85 when we met. She moved to an extended care home at 95. But she packed her bags and walked down to the police station within a year and told the officers: "Lock me up! I can't live with those old biddies anymore!"
She was easily 10 years older than anyone else in the place. It was a good Christian home. They disapproved of her swearing. (She had a few choice words.) They frowned on her shot of brandy at bedtime.
So she came to live with us. Our family had moved to a three-bedroom house to accommodate our growing family. I now had two younger sisters. I shared a room with Grandma and fell asleep nightly to the sound of her snoring.
She recited old Victorian poetry like "Poor John's Dead." These were long maudlin tragedies she knew by heart. She crocheted potholders. She lived to be 101 and would have been with us to the end but life intervened.
Mom and Dad finally divorced. Mom went to work. I found myself, at 13, responsible for my 2-year-old sister, Heidi, my 10-year-old sister, Wendy, and Grandma. When she got the flu and took a fall, I called the doctor. The paramedics came. She went to the hospital and moved to a care facility. I missed her so much!
I never knew until after she died that the spiritual bond between us was much deeper than I had imagined. She had packed her bags and two children to move to America from Liverpool, England, when she was 42. I started seminary at 42.
She had wanted to be a missionary (the only religious work allowed to women). My call to ministry may have fulfilled her dream.
She had booked passage on the Titanic (really!), but in a dream saw the boat sink. She postponed her journey and took the next ship to America leaving Liverpool that same year. If she hadn't believed in mystery, in the guidance of dreams, that poor woman and her two children, my grandmother and great-uncle, would have died in the icy waters. My mother would never have been born. I would never have been born. My children ...
Grandma loved me. Her unconditional love gave me courage in the face of whatever life brought my way. It was not complicated by expectations or demands. She just loved me. It is the love I came to trust as God's love, the love I have tried to pass on to my children, my community, my world.
When she died, I was 16. My mom was charged with making "the arrangements." She was too overwhelmed to handle it. So I made the decisions, chose the flowers, spoke with the cemetery — my first memorial service.
I discovered that Grandma had purchased two plots in the hills of Piedmont Cemetery when her husband had died some 40 years earlier. She paid $20 for each plot and had the tombstone prepared with everything but the last two digits of her date. The stone carver said he had never, in his 30 years of service, carved a date for a life so long. Born 1867, died 1968 — from the Civil War to the dawning of the Age of Aquarius — Grandma saw it all.
I come from strong roots. I am proud to be the great-grandchild of Leticia Hulland Hill. Her strengths live on in me.
— — —
Rev. Kristi Denham is pastor of the Congregational Church of Belmont, California (United Church of Christ). Her email address is {email RevKristi@aol.com}RevKristi@aol.com{/email}. © copyright 2007 by Kristi Denham.
Grandma had a flat in Oakland, Calif., over her landlady, Mrs. Kitchen. I went to visit her there when I was very small. A yellow canary sang in a cage by the window. We played Chinese checkers and talked about life. I slept on a lumpy sofa in her small living room while a loudly ticking mantel clock slowly lulled me to sleep. To this day I love the sound of loudly ticking clocks.
At Grandma's house I was safe. I knew I was loved. She was 85 when we met. She moved to an extended care home at 95. But she packed her bags and walked down to the police station within a year and told the officers: "Lock me up! I can't live with those old biddies anymore!"
She was easily 10 years older than anyone else in the place. It was a good Christian home. They disapproved of her swearing. (She had a few choice words.) They frowned on her shot of brandy at bedtime.
So she came to live with us. Our family had moved to a three-bedroom house to accommodate our growing family. I now had two younger sisters. I shared a room with Grandma and fell asleep nightly to the sound of her snoring.
She recited old Victorian poetry like "Poor John's Dead." These were long maudlin tragedies she knew by heart. She crocheted potholders. She lived to be 101 and would have been with us to the end but life intervened.
Mom and Dad finally divorced. Mom went to work. I found myself, at 13, responsible for my 2-year-old sister, Heidi, my 10-year-old sister, Wendy, and Grandma. When she got the flu and took a fall, I called the doctor. The paramedics came. She went to the hospital and moved to a care facility. I missed her so much!
I never knew until after she died that the spiritual bond between us was much deeper than I had imagined. She had packed her bags and two children to move to America from Liverpool, England, when she was 42. I started seminary at 42.
She had wanted to be a missionary (the only religious work allowed to women). My call to ministry may have fulfilled her dream.
She had booked passage on the Titanic (really!), but in a dream saw the boat sink. She postponed her journey and took the next ship to America leaving Liverpool that same year. If she hadn't believed in mystery, in the guidance of dreams, that poor woman and her two children, my grandmother and great-uncle, would have died in the icy waters. My mother would never have been born. I would never have been born. My children ...
Grandma loved me. Her unconditional love gave me courage in the face of whatever life brought my way. It was not complicated by expectations or demands. She just loved me. It is the love I came to trust as God's love, the love I have tried to pass on to my children, my community, my world.
When she died, I was 16. My mom was charged with making "the arrangements." She was too overwhelmed to handle it. So I made the decisions, chose the flowers, spoke with the cemetery — my first memorial service.
I discovered that Grandma had purchased two plots in the hills of Piedmont Cemetery when her husband had died some 40 years earlier. She paid $20 for each plot and had the tombstone prepared with everything but the last two digits of her date. The stone carver said he had never, in his 30 years of service, carved a date for a life so long. Born 1867, died 1968 — from the Civil War to the dawning of the Age of Aquarius — Grandma saw it all.
I come from strong roots. I am proud to be the great-grandchild of Leticia Hulland Hill. Her strengths live on in me.
— — —
Rev. Kristi Denham is pastor of the Congregational Church of Belmont, California (United Church of Christ). Her email address is {email RevKristi@aol.com}RevKristi@aol.com{/email}. © copyright 2007 by Kristi Denham.