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| For more pictures of this wonderful woman, check out this (courtesy of my sister Maggie) |
Grandma’s birthday cards were exceptional. Her consistency
was awe-inspiring. Every year, without fail. Always on time, never late. They
always included a balloon. Sometimes it said, “Happy Birthday,” other times
“Save Big Money at Menards” and at least once I received a balloon with a big
rubberband on the end. The sturdy kind that you beat against your fist in rapid
succession, trying to hold the rhythm. And the $5 bill. Folded inside a tiny
Ziploc bag. It was folded so precisely I swear she’d actually ironed it.
Sometimes I felt bad spending the $5. Like I ought to frame it. Or store it in
a safe with other well-folded items.
The envelopes that housed the cards always had my name
written in all caps, with each letter getting its own color, just for an extra
splash of class. Red G. Blue E. Green N. Black T. Red Z. Blue Y. I could hear
her say, “Hey kid, you’re worth so much to me that I’m going to use 5 pens and
spend 6 minutes just writing your name.” Sometimes my name would be followed
with an exclamation point. For emphasis. Or maybe to tell me that even if I
somehow forgot who I was, she never would.
As much as I looked forward to the relics inside the envelope, it
was her words that I most anticipated. Her words always made me proud. As a kid
I remember reading them in the Jacksonville Journal Courier’s Letters to the
Editor. I loved seeing the name “Mary Franz” in print. Like my Grandma was
Jacksonville’s very own Dear Abbey. The only thing I really picked up from her
words back then was “blah blah blah society, blah blah blah fornication, blah
blah democrats.” But then I got older and began to recognize her cunning
confidence with the written word. She did not care who agreed or disagreed with
her, she was going to make a strong and compelling case with her written words.
And agree or disagree, it was impossible not to respect her skill.
But in her birthday cards politics and personal conviction
were set aside and her words’ primary purpose was simply to express genuine
adoration. It wouldn’t have mattered if she penned the same thing to all of my
cousins that year, what she wrote felt tailor-made for me. She called me by
name, Gentzy. She called me kid. She’d make statements about exactly what was
happening in my life at that time. Just enough alliteration to catch my
attention and engender my respect, but never overly indulgent. I should back up
just a minute. The cards weren’t always devoid of her personal convictions.
Sometimes she’d sneak in thinly veiled advocacy, like separating birthday into
two words and underlining the word birth. So ornery. So clever. So
Grandma.
I will cherish the last cards I—and our kids—received from
Grandma. She called Zoe, Zoe and Brennan, Brennan, but Ava…Ava was always Ava
Jennings. The letters, while still exact and strung together magically to
create perfect phrases, were now slightly shaky. And yet never a grammatical
error. Never a misplaced apostrophe. Never an ill-advised comma. Like her hair
and her scarf and her purple shirt and purple shoes, the words flowed together
seamlessly, matching up perfectly, as if to say, “the whole may be greater than
the sum of its parts…but only if we’re careful.”
The last birthday card I’ll ever receive from Grandma
arrived this past October, for my 34th birthday. No balloon or
crisply folded $5 bill. Understandable. The card appeared to be made from
recycled paper, with a ribbon and several separate, though matching, pieces of
cardstock creatively glued to the outside. Maybe it was made by one of
Eclectic’s artists. On the inside of the card, the artist included the
following aphorism: “Life is not a matter of counting years, it’s a matter of
making years count.” These are nice words. I take comfort in them. They remind
me of grandma. And the counting reminds me of Grandpa. How true it was of their
well lived lives. They count so much to me. They were so easy to count on in
life, because I always felt like I mattered. Like I counted.
As nice as those words are though, they weren’t Grandma’s.
Grandma’s shakily etched though steadily crafted words wrapped around the
artists', encompassing them. Overshadowing them. Some words in all caps. At
least two different pens. Several, though not too many, exclamation points.
Carefully customized and considerate. Just for me. And at the end, the last
written words she would share with me were these: “And your electric essence
lingers on, though your body strays to other realms from time to time.” So mystical. So clever. So Grandma. I imagine that whatever
realm Grandma has strayed to, they have pens there. Lots of different colored pens.
And I am sure that when she finds the pens, she’ll sit down, thoughtfully
compose her words, and then find a way to send them to us, from time to time.
