Summing up one’s feelings for a beloved is quite impossible. But it is more impossible not to say anything about what my grams meant to me. Mary and Kate, my grams, were born in 1921 and 1923 respectively. Being part of the “Greatest Generation,” they grew up during the depression and knew some hard times with not much money. They both raised children (6 and 3) and enjoyed their grandkids and great-grandkids. In a few sentences, I’ve wrapped up about 85 years of life quite steriley. Yet it is neither accurate nor beautiful as life with its joys and pains.
We lost both of them within 13 months of each other. Gram Dolan (Mary Genevieve Maher Dolan) left us first on May 15, 2006. I was given the gift of being with her in the hours before she died. When the nurse came outside to tell me she was gone, I was on the phone with Gram Mahler (Katherine “Kate” Louise Kopp Mahler). She was comforting me as I cried and told her how things were going.
Over the next year, Gram Mahler’s health declined, and she moved to Troy, Missouri to live with Uncle Bill and Aunt Irene. The last time I saw her was in May when I stopped by Uncle Bill and Aunt Irene’s house. Looking back, that visit remains a sweet treasure in my heart.
I can’t smell Estee Lauder’s “Beautiful” without thinking Gram Dolan’s in the room shuffling the cards. When a woman walks by wearing ‘Vanderbilt,’ I’m fooled for a moment thinking Gram Mahler is near.
They were not perfect people. No one is. The struggle to overcome our faults and sometimes failing is what makes a person strive to become a saint and what makes us deliciously human and real. I see some of their traits in me and can understand them better as I work to improve my weaknesses and build on my strengths.
With both of them gone, I find myself reflecting on their lives and mine, too. What did I learn from them? Why
wasn’t I a better granddaughter? Why didn’t I call more? It’s easy to get down thinking of the ‘why didn’t I’s.” But I comfort myself in the knowledge that I said “I love you” often, that they now see things as they are and not as we humans can distort them to be.
When I was briefly alone with Gram Dolan in the hospital room, I whispered to her. She alone knows what it was, and I know she heard me. I feel both Grams helping me as I go through the day. I talk to them often, asking them to pray for me. There is much comfort in knowing that the last words I spoke to them were, “I love you.” Despite my shortcomings as a person and a granddaughter, despite my mistakes and despite the times I hurt them, they knew that my love was constant and true. I know that they loved me and did so much for me. There is much peace in knowing these things.
Several days before Gram Dolan died, we spoke briefly on the phone. She mentioned the dinners we used to have at our house that included games of cards and lots of laughing. Gram and Grampa Dolan laughed especially hard when my sisters presented them with an itemized bill at the end of the evening.The last thing Gram Dolan said to me a few days before she died was, “We really had some good times at your house, didn’t we?” We did, Gram, and we will again.
After the grandkids put carnations (Gram Mahler’s favorite flowers) on her casket, we all departed in quiet sadness. I turned around and saw the little hill where both Gram and Grampa Mahler were, side by side. After 25 years apart, they’re together for eternity. I cried for myself then. I was lonely for them. They’re waiting for me. All of my loved ones. We’ll be together again some day. Until then, I’ll live my life the best I can, loving fully, learning from my mistakes.
Till we meet again, my sweet grams.
May the Angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs greet you at your arrival and lead you into the holy city, Jerusalem.
May the choir of Angels greet you and like Lazarus, who once was a poor man, may you have eternal rest.
