A Slice of German Chocolate Birthday Cake

It’s funny. Growing up, my grandmother was one of the most important people in my entire little world. Well, both my grandparents were, but my grandmother, most of all, was integral to shaping me into the person I was to become.

I know, I know. By the basic rules of biology, people have two sets of grandparents. Of course. But this story focuses on my father’s parents. My other set, the parents of my mother, lived in the old country. One grandmother did, anyway. I got to meet her later, at age 6 when she came to the United States for a visit, and again when I was barely an adult. But, in neither case, did I speak the language of the old county, nor did she speak mine. After all, I was “Born in the USA,” as Bruce Springsteen sang about. Never taught the old languages of my heritage, though I certainly excelled in English.

So, our communication was limited with that grandmother. “Zlatky zuky,” is the main thing i remember her saying to me. “Golden Child.” Wonderful. Beautiful. Uplifting and so, so positive. I will forever cherish those words, and remember them fondly. But I cannot claim to have known the woman. I didn’t know what made her tick. What she was all about. What made her sad, or happy. Hearing some words said about you, a child, or, rather, a near adult, that wasn’t known to her, was pleasing. But it was very different than knowing and being able to truly love her.

As to that grandpa, well, he died before I was born. I was conceived, mind you. But not yet born. And, that little stinker went and died on me before I could ever meet him. I know very little about him. The language barrier, and a narcissistic mother, have contrived to make that so. She - my mother - was never ready to talk about him. And so I heard a rotating story of lies. Sometimes he was amazing. A wonderful artist. And a great father. Sometimes he was away working all of the time and drunk when he was around. Really, it depended on her mood in the telling, and the truth is probably somewhere between all the dramatic lies.

But, I digress I bit. The main point of my long-winded tale is that, I know one set of grandparents well. My dad’s parents. A son and daughter of poor coal miners. Of immigrants. Shaped by the Great Depression and World War II, members of the Greatest Generation. And, I am so very thankful for that. I hear all sorts of tales from friends - and even my own spouse - of grandparents who don’t care. Of grandparents who adored the first, and maybe second, born, but who cared little beyond that. Who were happy if the grandchildren were seen and not heard. And maybe throw them a fiver on a birthday to keep up a facade of being a decent grandparent.

Maybe it is because I am the only child of any only child that my experience was different. But I don’t think so. I think that this particular set of grandparents would feel the same about each and every grandchild of each and every child and would have the same capacity for love of one, just as much as they would have had of three, or twenty. And, that is to say, a huge capacity for love.

And so I, the only child of this narcissist of a mother who had no family in the new country to speak of, save for a crazy sister who was just as off her rocker as she was, and a father who was in spite of his amazing parentage to turn into a raging philandering alcoholic, was somehow blessed to have these amazing grandparents to help turn me into a relatively normal, intelligent, (mostly) functional human being.

Years and yearsspent with my grandparents, with my grandmother essentially raising me while my parents worked and otherwise pretended they had no responsibilities. And got to know her, I did. I can recite her stories as well as she can. I could tell you just how she met my grandfather, and her first (bad) impression of him. I could tell you about her parents and I feel as if I know them, although they passed decades before I was born. I could tell you all about her childhood in a small town, being the youngest of eight, and of how she was left alone to act as a housemaid for her father after her mother died at the ripe old age of 45 and her siblings left one by one to do their own thing.

I know all about the man she thought she would marry, as well as the one she actually did, and I know the ins and outs of my extended family on both her and my grandfather’s sides. When my grandfather passed, it was me she looked to for comfort, rather than her son, and she and I talked and cried together until the wee hours of the morning, as we wrote thank you notes for the various plants and gifts brought to the funeral.

I watched her as she, one by one, nursed all of the members of her generation, through various life challenges and, eventually for each of her siblings, dementia and then the final goodbye. We said goodbye to her son, my father, together. She wasn’t much interested in planning a funeral. A parent should never have to bury a child. But a child, well, it’s their responsibility to bury the parent, and so that’s what I did, with her approval of the details.

And, just like that, we have ended up full circle. With my father dead, I am the person left to take care of her. After she’d taken care of people throughout her entire life, first with her father, and then her husband, and then her child, and then her siblings, and then her husband’s siblings. Oh, and her grandchild, too. Now it is her turn to be taken care of. And I’m the one to do it. And, so I do. What I’m supposed to. What I want to, because, hey, she is truly more of a mother figure to me than the mother I had, and she is one of the most important and defining figures of my entire life, in spite of the fact that she’s far from perfect. And now, I watch her succumb to the horrors of dementia, just like her many siblings before her.

She doesn’t remember me anymore. She knows me as her “friend”. Her grandchild is someone from her past. Someone who exists somewhere else. But not right in front of her. And, so, I don’t call her “Grandma” anymore, at least not to her face. She gets upset when I do that. I’m someone new. She remembers me from day to day, even if she doesn’t know me as anyone other than someone who’s a caring face. I guess that’s better than nothing. At least I can still provide her with some comfort, and some happiness. Today I’ve brought her a German chocolate cate, with butter pecan icing. Her favorite. Just like she made for so many birthdays throughout the years. So many boxed cakes. So many tubs of icing. So many photos and renditions of “Happy Birthday.” This birthday celebration is different. It’s awful. It breaks my heart and makes me want to scream and rail at the universe, even as I want to see her face light up with happiness with the thought that someone brought her a delicious treat.

“Here, Beatrice. I brought you this for your birthday! Ninety three!!!! Isn’t that wonderful! May I give you a slice of chocolate cake? It’s your favorite, German chocolate with butter pecan icing!”