The universe flickered earlier this month as my grandma took her last breath.
She was quiet, smart, and spunky, with a sense of humor that would catch you off guard. She was resilient in the face of adversity, especially when my grandfather died in 2002. She had a soft spot for animals. She adored dogs and always had one. She loved birds, especially cardinals, which adorned plates, needlework, paintings, and photographs on her walls of her home. And she was one of my biggest fans: when we were cleaning out her room after she died, we left with seven of my photographs in frames (two of them featuring cardinals that immediately made me think of her when I made the images back in 2015).
She was a tough woman who fought a difficult fight against deteriorating health over the last four years. A hospital visit in 2021 led to the unexpected loss of her leg, and with it the independence that defined her in my mind. She never returned to her home after that.
Instead of dwelling on her final years, I’d rather tell you about the stoic, kind woman of my childhood and adolescence who welcomed family and friends into her home for dinner nearly every Friday night for over 20 years.
I was too young to remember exactly when Friday night dinners at Grandma’s house started. After talking with my parents, our best guess is the late 90s — around 1997. They continued until COVID, shortly before her health took a turn.
Guests included my mom and her two sisters, sometimes with spouses; a rotating selection of cousins, usually until they found other interests as teenagers; children of those cousins later on; girlfriends, boyfriends, fiancés; and any friends who happened to be in town. The food was always homemade. I think my mom and aunts would sometimes help out making food or bringing sides, especially in the later years. No one was ever turned away. There was always enough food for everyone. Everyone.
I have so many memories of running around her house as a kid, playing with her dogs, drinking tiny cans of root beers she bought for the kids, picking out meals for birthday celebrations, laughing at conversations on her porch when the weather was nice, staying the night and having pancakes the next morning.
During the sermon at her funeral, her pastor talked about how she always found ways to make her circle larger. Nowhere was that more apparent than in the Friday night dinners.
I will miss her. I have the usual guilt after someone dies: I should have written to her more, called her once in a while, visited home more often. It’s so easy to let those “shoulds” build up when you implicitly assume you can catch up later.
But I treasure the time I had to know her. When I think of her now, the first thing that will forever come to mind is Friday night dinners. Growing up, I didn’t think twice about them. But as an adult, I have a better understanding of the love and labor that went into each meal, and I can appreciate how she never once complained about too many people showing up. There was always another chair to find, always another plate, always more food. Always more room for her circle to grow.
I’m thankful that I now understand just how special that was.
