Snow days are slow, laid back days that give a little extra time for reflection. Today was one of those days and I’ve been thinking about the women in my family. I have one grandparent still living, and she is an amazing 94 year old woman who grew up through World War I in Germany, survived the horrors of WWII while still in Germany (especially as a woman in a war-torn city), watched her family forced to live in East Germany, moved to the United States with a baby her scientist-husband didn’t meet for 9 months, survived a difficult marriage in a foreign country with a difficult language and strange culture, and raised an amazing woman under extremely strenuous conditions. Meeting her, you’d never know what a difficult life she’s had. She is charming, funny, loves a glass of wine and apparently smoked eel… and spending hours creating hand-puppet-shadows with her grandchildren. She introduced me to tuna fish casserole, described my hair as “beautiful golden wheat,” and was convinced for an evening that one of my large freckles was a chocolate smear. She always finds the positive and humor in every situation. Once when I had to interview people about the experiences of war for an 8th grade project, the first person I thought of was my Oma. She didn’t talk much of the horrors of war, although she did mention she awoke weekly from nightmares, but spoke of all the worthy inventions and technology that comes with war. She also had great stories of her friends back in Germany, and the shinanigans they would get into. She sang songs in German, and once without thinking sang right along with my youngest sister, Elisabeth, an old German lullaby where they both mis-sang “My father is a sheep”… a huge insult when translated in German, and they both crack up every time they sing that song now.
My other grandmother was just as impressive…the daughter of “the meanest woman” my aunt ever met, whose job on the farm as a 5 year old was to kill the chickens, was the top female of her high school class, one of the first women to earn a science degree at Rice University, worked as the top scientist (chemist I believe?) in a gun factory during WWII and struggled for the rest of her life knowing guns she made were responsible for killing innocent men. A late teen and 20-something during the Great Depression, she learned to scrimp and save and did so enough to put her children and grandchildren through college, struggled to have children and finally had 2 amazing kids in her 30’s (and people complimented her “grandchildren”), survived breast cancer twice, and taught Evolution as a high school Biology teacher when it was illegal to do so. I knew my Granny as an amazing cook, the woman who taught me the secret to “Granny dressing,” the woman who could sew her own clothes and always look fantastic, beautiful white hair that always was curled just so, an amazing self-taught oil painter of literally hundreds of paintings, grower of gorgeous, huge roses, and a woman who knew how to throw a party. She had the best southern sayings, and had a pearl of wisdom to match every soft wrinkle in her face. I remember asking her how she got to have so many wrinkles, and she looked at me, completely seriously and said, “Adriane, you wouldn’t believe it.” She stretched her arms out and made a giant circle with her hands about a foot away from either side of her head and said, “my head use to be THIS BIG.” Dead serious face. We cracked up for forever after that.
My aunt spent quite a bit of her childhood growing up in Louisiana on the oil refineries, she has more college degrees than I can count, spent many years digging in archeological sites, saving neighborhood cats, and saving old houses turning them back into something better than when they were first built. She survived a horribly abusive first marriage, and went on to marry a sweet and kind carpenter and have her first child in her ‘40’s, go through one of the most civil divorces I've ever seen where they BOTH truly kept their daughter's best interest at heart, raise a gorgeous, funny, responsible, smart woman, all while working for the government trying to protect and save various animal habitats. I know her as an amazingly gifted quilter, the woman who bangs both fists on the table in bouts of uncontrollable laughter, who can make any house feel like a home, makes the best brunch parties, has the greenest thumb I’ve ever seen and always a perfect garden, and has funny college stories like the one where a mysterious marijuana plant grew up in a crack in the cement in front of her apartment, and that was the only “weed” not destroyed for the entire year. In fact, it was always in perfect condition, like everyone was silently taking care of it…no one ever publicly acknowledged the plant…
My mother grew up between American and German cultures, and had a rough childhood where her best friend, sibling, and protector was her sweet dog. She has great stories of Catholic High School life complete with mean nuns, and went on to get a PhD in biology back when it was still taboo for a woman to be so interested in science. She wanted to be a vet (also socially unacceptable) and decided instead to raise 4 children, while country hoping from 1979-1995. She has been involved in many causes, most recently in convincing her religious community to be more accepting of the gay, lesbian, and transgendered community in her branch of Lutherans. Always the researcher, she has traced back our family tree as far as I think she can go, has visited many of the sites our ancestors once walked, and she knows more about world history, governments, people, and news than anyone I know. After a confusing and difficult childhood and challenging adulthood put on pause with the raising of 4 very successful children, she has worked hard to figure out who she is and what she wants. That sounds so cliché, but I am proud of all the successes she has made and the things she has overcome. I know her as an animal-lover…she has owned every animal as a pet at some point, we always rescued turtles off the roads, brought hurt birds to vets for wildlife, let strays into our house, fed wild Dutch mice who lived behind the TV, and allowed domesticated mice to roll around the house in clear, plastic balls. We held funerals for fallen birds and dead guppies (Mrs. Hunchback). She bakes the best cakes in the German style, nothing is off-limits to discuss, and as a mom took us out of school individually for a day every year to have “mom-time” on bikes in Brazos Bend State Park and in winter showed us how to maneuver properly in skis. I have so many memories I could insert here about my mother, but the one that stands out as describing her the way I know her best is…when we first moved to Holland and lived in a hotel for several months, I found I had run out of hairspray the night before the first day I was to start school. I was devastated since my self-esteem seemed to be contained in that aerosol bottle. My sweet mom walked to every single store with me on the Strand to find even ONE with hairspray. No one had any, so I went with limp hair. I knew I’d spend that afternoon searching the Hague for hairspray, but also knew my mother, the woman who was not into makeup, hair, jewelry, nail polish, or anything else “girly,” would NOT be ok scouring Holland, AGAIN for some dumb hairspray. But to my shock when I got home, a HUGE can of the stuff was sitting on my bed! I was always flabbergasted on how my mom “just knew,” even though I survived that day and no one said a thing about my hair. She will do just about anything for her children if it is important to them, and I’ve been reminded of this as she has maneuvered into the role of Omama to Oliver while I’m trying to figure out this mothering thing.
All these women have done such outstanding things with their lives and are leaving or have left these amazing legacies. They have gone through so much and became these incredible, successful, strong women, yet kept their soft, nurturing, loving nature. I marvel at them and wonder what thumbprint I will leave behind. Am I going through a midlife crisis in my 30’s?
My little man over Christmas. Here with Sinatra, or "NaYa" as he calls him.
