Grandma made dandelion wine. I was no more than seven when I first tasted it. And I have searched in the years since to recapture that bitter-sweet taste. I was immortal then and so was Grandma. She could always make more, I might have thought—if my unformed jellied brain had not been enthralled with living.
Much of what Grandma was came from her mother. I knew her as Grandma Joachim. I would visit my great-grandmother almost daily when the school day was done. She made “Russian Tea” from the chamomile that grew around the tiny trailer house that was her home. She made cookies for me while I paged through picture books filled with somber faces I would never know. Yet their blood runs through my veins.
The highlight of the visit was the nickel that she would pull from her coin purse.
I was a mercenary visitor.
When Grandma Joachim died, it was her daughter who took my hand and led me to the casket. As Grandma Bender and I looked down at the shell of what had been, she squeezed my hand. “No more nickels,” she said.
My memories of Grandma Bender are much more vivid. We had more time together. I spent summers there and would have grown fat on the rich German delicacies had Grandpa and Grandma not seen to it that I develop my skills as a bale hauler.
Nobody worked harder than Grandma.
One day, out in the field, we came upon a very young rabbit—its mother was dead. Grandma picked it up, and when I realized she meant to dispatch it, I pleaded for its life. I lost the case and the bunny lost its life. She thought it better to end its life with a quick twist of the neck than have it starve or become a meal for a fox.
But Grandma was far from heartless. If you were quick, you could catch her eyes smiling. She could spot a drinker a mile away, and when Grandpa walked in the door after a social visit at George’s Bar, she would chew him out for having “chicken eyes.” She ended every argument with Grandpa with a simple statement: “Ach Benny, you’re so dumb.”
Theirs was not a romantic partnership. Grandpa tells me that when he asked her to marry him, all she did was shrug her shoulders as if to say, “Well, I’m not doing anything else for the rest of my life.” With a simple shrug of the shoulders, my father came into existence as did I some years later.
At Christmas, she would get modern kitchen conveniences from her thoughtful children and grandchildren. But at the end of the day the new mixers and toaster ovens would be stowed in the attic with last year’s loot. “She was saving it for nice,” she told us. We still quote her today.
Today when any Bender gets a gift you can see a glint come to his eye and a grin to his face. “I’m gonna save it for nice,” is the punch line that always gets a laugh.
A beautiful crocheted doily lies on my old oak table. Grandma made one for all of us grandkids, I’ve had it for years, but only lately could I bring myself to put it on display. I guess I was saving it for nice. Grandma left us dozens of crocheted masterpieces. And for two years after her death we dined on her famous kuchen and homemade noodles. The freezer was one of the only modern appliances she ever used.
Her whole life was a service to those she loved and when a stroke took the use of her hands she felt useless. “I wish I could die,” she told me. “Well Grandma, I can’t say I would wish otherwise if I were you,” I replied. “Besides, as stubborn as you are, you’ll probably get your way.”
She cried.
“But I’m stubborn too, Grandma,” I amended.
There was no merciful hand to ease her suffering as she had ended the life of a small rabbit all those years ago. A few months later when Grandma got her wish, no one held my hand as I took my last look. But as we waited for the minister to begin the service, Mom leaned over and whispered in my ear.
“No more nickels,” she said.
