Let me start with a disclaimer of sorts. I am not a grandfather. Neither do I sleep with a grandmother. Kris and I have two children. Our son, Bill, died nine years ago. Our daughter, Julie, presently lives and works in California. We often tell her that grandchildren would be nice. We drop hints about how much fun it would be to take a four-year-old to Disney World. But my values are sufficiently traditional so as to prompt a concern about order and sequence. So I am rooting for an engagement, followed by a wedding. Then I’ll turn on the pressure for grandchildren.
Having heard innumerable preachers tell stories about their grandchildren, I expect to be retired from the pulpit before a similar body of material comes along. Which may save me from the temptation to boast and brag. Because mine will surely be as cute and clever as any. Clearly worthy of mention in a sermon. Or several sermons.
So why did I accept an invitation to submit an essay for a book on the spiritual aspects of grandparenting? As a tribute to a very special grandmother, that’s why. I’m talking about the lady who made a world of difference in my life. But I’m getting ahead of my story. And hers, too.
My grandmother, Agnes, was born in the latter days of the 19th century in a remote rural village called Kranj, in the land now called Slovenia. For most of my life, that land was called Yugoslavia, with Slovenia being its northernmost and loveliest province. Today, Slovenia is its own republic. To which I will someday return for a deep drink of nostalgia, my only previous visit having taken place in 1970. But though my grandmother claimed that land as her home, she never returned to it after her teens. And therein lies a most interesting story.
Although I grew up calling her “Grandma Meyers” or “Big Grandma” (because she was), she was born Agnes Potokar in the year 1895. She was the last of a large number of children, the daughter of a father who eked out a living for his family making bricks by hand. To call his business “the brick works” would have belied how labor intensive the work really was. All her older brothers practiced the trade. As she would have, too, had she stayed in her little village. But her mother died when she was 12 and she quickly discerned that there was no future for her there.
Within a year she moved to a neighboring village, cooking and caring for children in a slightly more affluent home. This she did until she was 17 when a most tempting offer came her way. She answered an inquiry from a Jewish jeweler and his wife (surnamed Rubenstein) who lived in a New York City apartment overlooking Central Park. “Cook and clean for us for six months,” they wrote, “and we’ll pay your passage to America.” Figuring that if she could handle such a challenge in one country, she could probably handle it in another. So she accepted the offer, packed her belongings and sailed to America. Which is how it came to pass that on one of her rare nights off in the “Big Apple,” she met a fellow countryman named Anton Markuzich in a restaurant frequented by Slovenians. She thought he was rugged. He thought she was beautiful. Whereupon he gave her a nickel and sent her off to buy a pail of beer. Such was the beginning of their courtship.
My mother was the offspring of their union. Now living as a threesome across the Hudson River in New Jersey, they received an overture from the Rubensteins. “We’d love to see the baby,” they said. “Why don’t you bring her ‘round come Saturday next….in the afternoon….for coffee and cake.” So they came, ate and showed off the baby. As they rose to go, Mr. Rubenstein removed his checkbook from the inside pocket of his suit coat and said: “You are young. You are just starting out. Your whole life is in front of you. You will make many children. Unfortunately, my wife and I will never make any children. We can give much to your little girl. Let us adopt her from you. In return for which we will pay you. In fact, we will pay you whatever you ask.”
And while my grandparents took no offense at the offer, they refused the offer. And, as far as I knew, they never heard from the Rubensteins again. That little girl was Lily (Lillian). She was my mother. And she was the only child my grandparents ever had. Now, 88 years later, she is dead, her tenure falling just short of my grandmother’s 96 years, which ended in 1991.
When I told that story to a local rabbi, he looked at me in genuine amazement and said: “My gosh, Ritter, you could have been me.” Religiously speaking, however, that was as close as my mother ever came to being Jewish. But she never came any closer to being Roman Catholic, either. Most Slovenians were. And still are. My grandparents were when they came to Detroit. There was some recollection of their going to Mass. At least my mother made her first communion. I have pictures to prove it. And my grandmother told of taking a basket containing the fixings for Easter dinner to be blessed by the priest. But they were far from faithful congregants. And one Christmas Eve, when the priest told all the Christmas and Easter people to get up and give the regulars their seats, Anton turned to Agnes and muttered: “We’re outta here.” And they were. Forever.
Which is why all my mother knew when she met my father was that the church she was staying away from was the Roman Catholic church. And all my father knew when he met my mother was that the church he was staying away from was the German Lutheran church. Which is how it came to pass that, needful of a clergyman to marry them, they approached a local Methodist who was then serving a church known for giving popcorn to little children. He married them…..sans popcorn. And he baptized me….again, sans popcorn. The need to sprinkle me there got my mother there. And she joined the Methodist Church on the Sunday I was confirmed 12 years later.
My mother’s early years were not what she would have called happy. She didn’t like being an only child. Neither did she like being a Slovenian immigrant. And being poor didn’t make things any easier. Nor did her marriage to a very giving man (my father) who suffered from a very unforgiving addiction. But again, I am departing from my story.
All the ethnicity that was wasted on my mother was lavished on me. I didn’t mind being Slovenian at all. I went to the Slovene National Hall with my grandfather. I ate the wonderful “old country” foods prepared by my grandmother. And while I didn’t learn enough of the language for speaking, I learned plenty for singing. I also learned to polka as a result of attending innumerable weddings where men drank beer from large pitchers and took their turns dancing with the bride, but only after pinning five dollars to her dress. I used to joke that the last one left standing at a Slovenian wedding was declared the winner. But I exaggerate. Fondly so.
Three years after my birth, the United States government thought my father might be useful in Italy doing a little mopping up with the U.S. army after the defeat of Mussolini. So every day my mother dropped me off at my grandmother’s on her way to work. Then, at the end of the day, we all ate dinner at my grandparents’ table before mother and son ventured back to the little frame bungalow on the near northwest side of Detroit. One of my earliest memories concerns the day my grandmother took me to nursery school at Greenfield Park Elementary. Nervous about going in, I told her that I would remain in nursery school as long as she promised to stand on the corner until my release at noon. As near as I can recall, I elicited the same promise on a daily basis. And, to this day, there is a part of me that believes she never budged from that corner, rain or shine.
For there was never a doubt in my mind that my grandmother loved me. It was from her that I received what the Bible calls “the blessing,” early and often. She affirmed my value in the present and predicted great things for me in the future. There are several versions of an old story about a Jewish mother wheeling her infant twins through the streets of town in a stroller. When asked to name them, she was overheard to reply: “The one on the left is Nathan, the doctor. The one on the right is Reuben, the lawyer.” Which is not necessarily a bad thing. For while children should not be fitted for future professions like straitjackets, there are worse things than having vocational stardom predicted for them at an early age. To be sure, very few children will “grow up to be President someday.” But we would be better served if more of them thought so.
In my grandmother’s eyes, I could do anything. Given her rather limited investment in things religious, she probably wondered about my choice of vocation, made and announced somewhere around my 14th year. But if a preacher was what I wanted to be, that’s what I should be. And while she had limited financial resources to commit to my preparation, I never lacked for an encouraging word. It wasn’t until late in her life that she heard me preach. But her first words upon greeting me in the narthex were: “My God, you’re good.” As to whether that was a prayer or an exclamation of surprise, I never knew. But it was voiced with visible pride.
The fact that my grandmother gave me “the blessing” does not necessarily mean that she understood it. At least not in the biblical sense. I don’t recall ever seeing a Bible in my grandmother’s hand, let alone in my grandmother’s house. If there was one, it was probably deep in some drawer. The only religious artifact that was visible was a framed crucifix of Jesus that hung on her bedroom wall. But other than occasionally dusting it, I don’t recall any pointed references to it. Looking back on it now, I think it functioned more as a security blanket than a devotional object. Not unlike a St. Christopher’s medal for the car (which my grandfather pinned to the dashboard of his old Ford), she must have thought it afforded some protection for all who slept therein.
Nonetheless, a lengthy absence from Catholic practice didn’t keep my grandmother from articulating a theology of sin. For whenever anybody within her line of vision gave any indication of thinking more highly of themselves than they ought to think, she could be heard to mutter: “And you think your feet don’t smell.” Actually, she had an alternative version of the same saying. But in deference to her memory and your sensitivity, I’m not about to tell you what it was.
From time to time, all feet stink. As a commentary on human nature, hers was the bottom line….the great leveler….and the perfect pinprick in the balloon of all puffiness, pretension and pride. I once read that Peter Cartwright, that colorful but eccentric Methodist circuit rider of the American frontier, used to come riding into a settlement on his horse….reins in one hand….Bible in the other….shouting at the top of his lungs: “I smell Hell here.” Well, I suppose he could pick any village in any era (including my village in this era) and get quite a nose full. Sin stinks. It stinks to high heaven. Which is probably why God smells it first. Sooner or later, however, it stinks closer to home, so that even lapsed Catholics like my grandmother can smell it next. “All men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” says Paul. Which makes the Fraternal Order of Sinners the most inclusive brotherhood in the known world, so inclusive that it dropped all gender distinctions on the day Eve was first admitted into membership, and has been making room for women on an equal basis ever since.
If my grandmother understood that grace could trump sin in that great card game called Life in Christ, she never said. But grace was felt in her home. And it was most clearly evidenced at her table. My grandmother was an incredible cook. I don’t remember seeing her stovetop without a stock pot simmering. Which meant that her soups, sauces and gravies were to die for. In today’s health conscious culture, one might say they were to die from. But my grandmother lived to the ripe old age of 96 and, to my knowledge, never suffered from a clogged artery or vein. Every meal began with homemade soup. And if noodles were included on the bill of fare, they were always made from scratch, then rolled and cut to ensure perfect freshness. Chickens had to be purchased squawking and then killed. First by her own hand. Then, when age slowed her chopping arm, by the butcher. Every major meal featured two meats of which chicken was but one. And if the other was ham, there had to be two kinds of horseradish to garnish it (one minced and creamed, the other shaven from the root).
But her real joy came with serving, not cooking. She was terribly afraid that somebody might walk away from her table hungry. Of only slightly less concern was her worry that somebody might come to the table expecting a favorite dish, only to have to settle for a substitute. During major dinners she never sat, preferring to circle the table and ladle additional food on people’s plates. But I have no warmer memories of family and community than those garnered from my grandmother’s dining room. Meals took forever, not simply because of the food but because of the stories. And every time I read biblical references to the great eschatological banquet of the Kingdom, hers is the table I picture. Talk about comfort food. While a steady diet of grandmother’s cooking might have eventually attacked my heart, it was that same diet (in some otherwise difficult years of family life) that healed my heart.
And then there’s a little matter of work ethic. While she may have turned her 13-year-old back on a lifetime of making bricks, she never retreated from diligent labor of any kind. She survived the Depression and my grandfather’s two-year battle with pleurisy by working in a hat factory. Yet her house was immaculate. And her yard, equally so. She cut her own grass well into her eighties. And the job was never done until the street was swept and the gutter hosed down. She often told me that I was the only person in the family capable of working as hard as she did. Which has served me well to this day. I see myself as the Walter Terrell of the Methodist ministry. Which may mean nothing to anybody outside Detroit. But Walter Terrell was a hulking right-handed pitcher who toiled for the Detroit Tiger organization during some of the better years of Sparky Anderson’s reign as manager. He never won more than 17 games in his best year. But Sparky liked him. A lot. That’s because Sparky said: “Every fourth day you just hand Walter the baseball and he goes out and throws it. He may not always throw it successfully. He may not always throw it brilliantly. But when you hand it to him, he never turns it down.”
But there was never a day when I deemed hard work to be the prerequisite for obtaining my grandmother’s love. I never toiled beside her in yard and garden so that she might love me, but because she loved me. Work was my response to her gift. Which is how I understand things to be in the Gospel. Diligent labor was not my way of earning anything. But it was my way of expressing everything. Jesus once told his disciples that “my Father is working and I am working.” Which tells me more about their relationship than their results. But then I learned that from the lady I affectionately call “The Old Yugoslav.”
If only things could have ended better than they did. A heart attack at 87 while sweeping the gutter would have been highly appropriate. The thought of dying while leaning on her broom would have made her smile. Her neighborhood was changing….deteriorating, most would say….but her house and the adjacent lot she turned into a colorful floral jewel, served as a barrier against the blight, at least during the years of her occupancy. She brushed off a pair of break-ins, once my calling out my name as if I were in the next room rather than 30 miles away. That time the robber fled. But time committed its own brand of larceny. Finally her legs couldn’t support her and a lengthy hospitalization offered a convenient opportunity to move her into an apartment and, subsequently, a nursing facility. I’ll never forget the day she looked daggers at me and said: “I expected that others would do this to me, but I never expected you would do this to me.” There was little I could say. Everybody said it was for her own good. To this day, I’m not so sure.
Then there was the day she thought she was dying. The remnants of our family, small and getting smaller, circled around her bed. She folded her hands on her chest and told everybody (by name) how much she loved them as a prelude to saying goodbye to them. Then she closed her eyes to die. It was like a scene out of a fifties movie. Except she didn’t die. Which genuinely surprised her. So 45 seconds later, she opened her eyes, repeated the same ritual, and once again offered herself unto death. But she didn’t die that time, either. So she promptly announced: “I guess He’s not ready for me yet.” So she went back to the nursing home and lived another year.
It was one of the few times I heard her reference either God or the afterlife. Not because she lacked belief, but because she comfortably believed. Her tone betrayed little doubt that God had something else in store. The only issue was timing. A year later, with absolutely nobody present, she breathed her last. Kris and I were out of town. So our kids got the call and attended to the details. It was their first, but far from their last, brush with death. By that time, they probably figured that great-grandma was immortal. She wasn’t. But if God’s mercy is anywhere near what it’s cracked up to be, there are people who are presently enjoying some incredible gravy at the great bridal feast of the Lamb.
