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Entry tags:
- family,
- grandparents,
- grief,
- mother,
- sad
Well, isn't that useful to have in print. Sigh.
I was hunting for something unrelated and found one of Grandpa's letters to Mom. This one is probably a keeper, or at least a scanner, because unlike many of his letters, this one is written (although shaky as anything and hard to read, because it's not long before he had the cataract surgery and he was used to typing anyway). But in another way, it's a heart-breaker.
You see, after Grandpa died, Mom expected to receive a gun of his, and she was upset that she didn't. It had been given to a cousin of mine instead, before he died. She said Grandpa had told her she would get it. This ended up being at least part of the reason for years of mostly-silence between her and my aunts, although I have always had the impression that some other reasons (none of the ones I was aware of being any more major or important than that one) had played into it also.
At any rate, this letter includes explicit indication of Grandpa's intention to have the cousin care for the gun, but my mother inherit it. I doubt he communicated it clearly to the rest of the family, or if he did, they forgot (humans do that!). But it's so sad to think that years of problems came, in part, from such a simple little thing. I now understand a little more of why the gun was important to my mother, however. Grandpa wrote, "I left my good shotgun in Dickie's care, to use and keep it oiled and clean. I don't believe it is permitted here. [He and Grandma had moved into a nursing home. He was probably right!] It was a gift to me from your mother. It sure furnished a lot of rabbits, pheasants, and wild dcks in our diet. When I am gone, it is yours to do as you wish with. I wouldn't part with it. It is my only keep sake and in perfect condition."
Those words would have made the gun far more important to Mom than just a gun. Her mother died when she was just a little girl (four, I believe) and Grandpa remarried. From my mother's mother's life, she kept very few things - most of the possessions given to her by her mother were discarded over her childhood as she outgrew them, something that upset her at the time and continued to upset her when she thought about it throughout her life. She did have her mother's wedding ring, which her father saved for her and gave to her at her graduation. But other than that, and perhaps her own baby book, I don't think she had any keepsakes of her mother. So this gun, which her mother had given to her father, which had a history of having fed them, which Grandpa referred to as his "only keep sake" (I doubt it was, but I think he meant, of Mom's mother)...would have been hugely precious to her. Moreso because the diamond ring went missing, sometime while I was in college or shortly after, I believe. (It turned out to be in their safety deposit box; I found it when cleaning it out. However, the couple times they looked in there, they did not find it. I think this owes to its having somehow been put in with a baggy of cuff links....)
So yes, I'm crying now. Not because of the gun itself - Mom didn't need another gun, though they would have used it some, I'm sure - and I definitely don't need to have inherited it. But because I understand, now, why she clung so hard to that idea. Her sisters were baffled, because Dickie had it, liked it, used it a lot, had cared for it...obviously it had been given to him and now it was his gun. And it's clear from the letter that Grandpa's intent, as he wrote it to my Mom, was for her to get it. I don't know if he ever made it clear to Dickie or anyone else, however! But it makes me cry, not because of the object, but because now I understand better. And because this was part of all the years of awkwardness and silence and distance. My mother loved her sisters and was so close to them when I was growing up. I didn't see how a gun could become such a dividing point. And now, partially, I do.
Oh, Mama. I wish I could go back in time and hold you and tell you it's not worth it. And I wish I could tell you where the ring was hiding, because that might have helped. (Then again, if I had a time machine, this would be one of the smaller of my interests, really.) And Mama? I have Grandma Bernice's ring, now. You said once that you'd meant to give it to me, and you wondered if I already had it, and I didn't. But I do now. I wish you could have known you still had it....
You see, after Grandpa died, Mom expected to receive a gun of his, and she was upset that she didn't. It had been given to a cousin of mine instead, before he died. She said Grandpa had told her she would get it. This ended up being at least part of the reason for years of mostly-silence between her and my aunts, although I have always had the impression that some other reasons (none of the ones I was aware of being any more major or important than that one) had played into it also.
At any rate, this letter includes explicit indication of Grandpa's intention to have the cousin care for the gun, but my mother inherit it. I doubt he communicated it clearly to the rest of the family, or if he did, they forgot (humans do that!). But it's so sad to think that years of problems came, in part, from such a simple little thing. I now understand a little more of why the gun was important to my mother, however. Grandpa wrote, "I left my good shotgun in Dickie's care, to use and keep it oiled and clean. I don't believe it is permitted here. [He and Grandma had moved into a nursing home. He was probably right!] It was a gift to me from your mother. It sure furnished a lot of rabbits, pheasants, and wild dcks in our diet. When I am gone, it is yours to do as you wish with. I wouldn't part with it. It is my only keep sake and in perfect condition."
Those words would have made the gun far more important to Mom than just a gun. Her mother died when she was just a little girl (four, I believe) and Grandpa remarried. From my mother's mother's life, she kept very few things - most of the possessions given to her by her mother were discarded over her childhood as she outgrew them, something that upset her at the time and continued to upset her when she thought about it throughout her life. She did have her mother's wedding ring, which her father saved for her and gave to her at her graduation. But other than that, and perhaps her own baby book, I don't think she had any keepsakes of her mother. So this gun, which her mother had given to her father, which had a history of having fed them, which Grandpa referred to as his "only keep sake" (I doubt it was, but I think he meant, of Mom's mother)...would have been hugely precious to her. Moreso because the diamond ring went missing, sometime while I was in college or shortly after, I believe. (It turned out to be in their safety deposit box; I found it when cleaning it out. However, the couple times they looked in there, they did not find it. I think this owes to its having somehow been put in with a baggy of cuff links....)
So yes, I'm crying now. Not because of the gun itself - Mom didn't need another gun, though they would have used it some, I'm sure - and I definitely don't need to have inherited it. But because I understand, now, why she clung so hard to that idea. Her sisters were baffled, because Dickie had it, liked it, used it a lot, had cared for it...obviously it had been given to him and now it was his gun. And it's clear from the letter that Grandpa's intent, as he wrote it to my Mom, was for her to get it. I don't know if he ever made it clear to Dickie or anyone else, however! But it makes me cry, not because of the object, but because now I understand better. And because this was part of all the years of awkwardness and silence and distance. My mother loved her sisters and was so close to them when I was growing up. I didn't see how a gun could become such a dividing point. And now, partially, I do.
Oh, Mama. I wish I could go back in time and hold you and tell you it's not worth it. And I wish I could tell you where the ring was hiding, because that might have helped. (Then again, if I had a time machine, this would be one of the smaller of my interests, really.) And Mama? I have Grandma Bernice's ring, now. You said once that you'd meant to give it to me, and you wondered if I already had it, and I didn't. But I do now. I wish you could have known you still had it....
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no subject
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for so many reasons
what a credit you are to your parents
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