My Grandmother

Another of the women who raised me is my grandmother. Eleanor Fowler Schimmel Staley. She passed away one day before her 78th birthday. She had an infection that her body couldn't combat. Prior to that infection she was steadily losing her memory over the course of 5 or 6 years. Maybe longer. We don't know what caused her to lose her memory. It was most likely dementia, or Alzheimer's but she never sought medical attention so it was undiagnosed.

My mother was a very young mother, in my opinion. She married at 19, had her first child at 20, her second at 22 and was divorced before 24. After she divorced my biological father she moved back in with her parents for a few years until she was able to purchase a house close by. I don't have very many direct memories of this time with with my grandmother. I do remember one time sitting on my grandmother's lap watching the fire and listening to my mother's voice on the TV. (My mom worked for KMVT at the time and did voice over work for some breaks). I also remember sitting at her kitchen table when I was in kindergarten and I bit into a sandwich and my tooth fell out. Beyond that I don't have many early memories of my pre-school years in that home.

I had a special place in my grandmother's heart because I was the only granddaughter in the vicinity, and I think because she had a large hand in raising me when I was really little as my mother was a single mother and had to work. After my mother remarried and we moved I was still able to grow sweet, treasured memories of my time with my grandmother. I know my brother Scott was her favorite, but I don't remember it ever bothering me because I always knew where I stood with my grandmother. She liked to call me Miss Tamara Ann. I would always think it was because I was in trouble.

My grandmother loved to be outside, She loved to garden, she loved the snow. She loved plants of all kinds, trees, bushes, flowers. I know she got in trouble once for smuggling a plant into Morocco. They had moved there for the Navy. They lived on 5 acres in Buhl and there are trees everywhere. She was very smart and could always take care of herself, and everyone else that needed it. She worked as a nurse for most of her life, as well as raising her children and being a navy wife. She had a formidable temper, and when she was displeased with something everyone knew it. There is so much more that I would like to say about my grandmother, but it's stuff for my journal, not this forum.

When my grandmother passed away it hit me very hard. It was kind of strange for it to bother me so much because for the last year or two of her life the memory loss had so changed her that I truly had mourned the loss of the great woman I knew before she actually died. Jud asked me what it was that was so affecting me about her passing and it took me a while to figure out that it was because of who she was for me, and what she did. She was my sanctuary. When things got difficult for me she was always there. Ready to make up the sofa with crisp, clean white sheets and tuck me in It didn't matter if it was when I was growing up and going to Grandma's meant a break from having to do chores, or take care of my little brothers, or when the man I loved was in boot camp and she comforted me as well as giving me some hard truths about raising a family in the military. It was again after I had a child of my own and my military husband was far away from me fighting in a war I neither understood, nor agreed with. Her house, her smile, her work ethic and her love were all my sanctuary. And when her spirit left this earth so did my sanctuary. And it hurt. It hurt more than the day when she came to my house and refused to get out of the truck because she didn't recognize the house, or me. It hurt more than the day she looked at me and didn't know who I was. It hurt more than the day i looked into her eyes, held her hand and realized that her eyes were blank. She was there, she was breathing, but her eyes were completely blank. When she did pass knowing that my life was going to change irrevocably, and that my sanctuary and my rock was gone was difficult to take.

And even now, I have deep sorrow for my loss. She is free from the bitter coils of no memory, and unhappiness. But I am left missing the grand lady who always made me feel like I was special. Because I remember what it was like to work side-by-side pulling the weeds from her gardens and flower beds. Even today I knelt underneath her trees, and rosebushes and pulled the "damn" grass out and spoke to her. "Grandma, I'll take care of your beautiful plants, and the home you worked so hard to build, and the man you spent your life with. I'll do my very best to take care of your memory, because you took such good care of me." Her legacy will be that I create a sanctuary for my children and grandchildren. It's the greatest gift, and the greatest tribute I can pay to the woman who had so much influence on me.