Unconditional Love

My Gram was a classic dumb blonde ... a glamour girl, more style than substance, with beautiful clothes and airhead ways.

She would hate that I used this photo ... her hair just out of curlers and I can almost smell the cold cream.

Gram's oldest daughter came home pregnant with me at 15. In 1950, that was scandalous.

My biological father ... a second-generation German named Karl Smith - never wanted to set eyes on me. Never did.

I think an attorney squeezed a thousand dollars out of his family to pay for my mom's c-section; Grandpa drank it. (I don't trust my memory on details - they could never be discussed without extreme emotion - even now. )

Around the time I was born my grandfather - a charming story-teller, capable carpenter and talented artist - was sliding the slippery slope into manic depression. My appearance around this time should have been the straw that broke my grandmother's back. That's what I think of when I look at this photo. With all that was going on in her life, she found a place in her heart for the little bastard.

Mom married a jazz musician when I was 2. He adopted me, gave me his name and we three moved to Philadelphia. Apparently I was a mess without my Grandmother, so she came for a visit. When it came time to leave, she woke up early in an attempt to sneak out while I was asleep. To her delight I woke and raised such a fuss she had to "take me home."

When my mother's marriage failed, we moved into Grandma's little white house permanently. By then Gram had a job at the phone company. Life was good - she taught me to shop, taught me to dress, taught me Finnish women are STRONG, taught me sex is eeeee-vil, got her first face lift, cried like a baby when we finally parted ways at my first wedding ... ignored my second wedding and bought me dog grooming mits for the third.

I saw her every week whenever I could - which was almost always.

When she retired she told me "when I get my retirement checks, I buy clothes. If there's any money left over, I buy food."

She liked lunch at Hudson's Eastland, where the rolls were crisp and warm. Once in a while we went for Chinese. That's where we were when I realized her gears were slipping.

Her pupils got very small. She looked up from her soft, sweet white roll and said "when you were born we were thinking about ..." She was getting alphabetical by then. I started at the front of the alphabet ... "Adoption?" I knew they'd talked about it.

To my surprise, she said "no, it was something else... ABORTION, that's it!"

Those words from her lips cut into my heart like a knife. Not only to think it, but to speak that word to me. Something told me if she was right she wouldn't say a thing like that, so I pulled myself together and said "well, it's a good thing you didn't."

Her eyes were still mean little pinpoints.

"Why?"

I smiled.

"Because you'd be paying for your own lunch."

Her pupils went back to normal size and she managed a nervous giggle.

The dementia took a long time to fully manifest. One of her last favorite memories was of the time in Philadelphia when I wouldn't let her leave. By then she was "leaving" as I watched. Seeing her mind die as her body perservered was heartbreaking.

On good days at the nursing home I could still see little glimmers of recognition and hear tiny reminders of our shared past. It didn't matter that sometimes she didn't know who I was or why I was there; the visits did me good. I could still wrap my arms around her fragile sholders or plant a kiss on her furrowed brow.

I can remember the last time I saw her outside at the home. My cousin Tom and I were her favorites. It was a beautiful spring day and we were seeking comfort at the knee of the one who had always been so ready to give it.

She went to the other side two years ago yesterday - just before her birthday. She would have been 98.

I thought I could get through the anniversary of her passing ok, but I can't. I am still a mess without my Grandmother.

I knew when she passed, she would come back in spirit. Which she has - with a bit of a vengeance at times, in dreams and in shaking of things. Most of it's very playful, but some of the dreams seem to say she won't be happy until she sees me again.

Unconditional love. How often do you find that in life?

How much do you miss it when it's gone?