A Powerful Woman

"Graw-Graw" is the name I called my grandmother. Clair as she was called by everyone else was the strongest woman I have ever met and the person that I have loved more than any other human on this planet. My grandmother was born in 1918 in Germany and never complained about anything. She arrived in the United States when she was just 4 years old through Ellis Island. My family did not speak any English as many did not when arriving to our country. They settled into New York City and my grandmother could tell stories about taking the subway seem like the train to Hogwart's. "Graw-Graw" always had a story to tell about her days in New York and her wild 20's with my grandfather which always made me smile. A psychiatrist once asked me to close my eyes and think of a person and place that I always felt safe. The only answer was my grandmother and my grandparents home. Have you ever had a place where as soon as you see it and smell the aroma when you enter it calms you? This was that place.

My mother and I were never close. I always felt the tone in her voice and the way she looked at me with displeasure no matter what I was doing. I think maybe part of the reason she treated me so poorly and emotionally abusive was because my grandmother adored me and she did not have that relationship with her. Jealousy is never an emotion that is helpful but is always hurtful and destructive. My grandmother as she got older came to live with me and my Air Force husband, our four children, and our dog. She had lived with us for a few years until she passed and I treasured every moment with her. The safe place and smells I loved growing up were now in my home with my children and it seemed magical. My mother(her daughter) lived just 15 minutes away and yet never came to visit unless it was a holiday, birthday party, or a special dinner I was cooking. I didn't understand how someone could be so cold to such a warm person.

Every time my grandmother would walk into the room my stress level went down. She had this calming and loving effect where all she could see were your strengths and not your weaknesses. My grandmother over the years taught me how to cook and bake using my great grandmother's recipes. My great grandmother was a pastry chef in France before they moved to the United States so the recipes were written in pencil and the paper was so thin you could see through it. Every time I was feeling insecure she always had a way to make me feel needed. We cooked or baked and I realize now it was a great distraction from my loneliness and self doubt in my abilities. The inviting aroma of whatever we were cooking just made the house and the surroundings even more special. "Graw-Graw" would take the items out of the oven and show me a job well done as she and I would admire the baked goods as if they were a work of art.

My grandmother influenced the way I raise my own children. I always made sure that my 4 children knew I was their biggest fan just as she was mine. Instead of looking for faults she would look for the assets in a person. Self help books are designed to help overcome obstacles that we create in ourselves and to those around us. She was my self help book.

The year my grandmother passed I started seeing a psychiatrist to help deal with the grief I was feeling. The emptiness and the hole it left in my heart. Shortly after losing my grandmother I started having nightmares about my estranged father and the assaults I was seeing in those dreams. As I continued my journey with my psychiatrist she realized that these were not nightmares but a reality I chose to forget. My safe place and person was no longer here for me and my PTSD surfaced. I told my mother about what had happened and her response was, "You were a sexual child". How can a 5 year old be sexual? I didn't realize it until she was gone that she must have thought something wasn't right because every chance she could she would come pick me up or she would babysit my siblings and me.

The values she instilled in me, the time she spent giving me her undivided attention, building me up instead of tearing me down, were building blocks I used with my own children. If I had not had her in my life I don't think I would still be here on Earth. I didn't realize it at the time but she was teaching me ways to value myself as a person and later as a wife and mother. My youngest now has just graduated high school this year and as I look to the future I hope that I have created that safe place and that I am a safe person not only for my children but for my grandchildren to come. A famous quote I have read is "A grandma makes time, keeps faith, shares wisdom, shows patience, gives joy, and lives love"...My Graw-Graw was all those things and more.