Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. ~Wayne Dyer
To Rob, a life cut way too short, he’ll always live in our memories. 9-2-86 to 12-7-08
If your reading my blog you most likely know that the weekend before Thanksgiving I lost my Great-Grandma, the following story is about her, the last and first memories of her that I have.
Last and First
My cousin Aaron turned around in his pew and leaned toward me as I sat between our cousins Angie and Becky. Two little boys, maybe six or seven years old, were walking by; two adorable little boys wearing little sweater vests and bow ties with neatly combed dark hair. “Those boys ain’t Cooley’s,” Aaron whispered.
Angie giggle/snorted into her hand and wiped a slow moving tear from her eye. Becky flipped a piece of her long blonde hair over her shoulder.
“They’re Francis’s nephews,” my grandmother answered from her wheelchair in the grieving line, reaching behind her to smack Aaron on the knee. Becky and I giggled and looked away. We’re supposed to be quiet, there isn’t supposed to be laughter in a church.
“Guess I was right,” Aaron whispered, sliding quickly out of our grandmother’s wingspan into his wife, a chorus of giggles erupted behind him, Grandma shot a look that could kill in our direction.
“Like Gran would really expect us to behave in church, she already got all the boys to wear ties with no hats.” Angie whispered, suppressing another giggle fit.
“Great-Grandma would be sitting her laughing at with us,” I replied.
“Yeah Barb,” Becky joined. “She could only expect so much from the Cooley clan. She’s having the last laugh with all the boys in ties without hats. I don’t think Junior hasn’t worn a hat since Great Grandpa passed in 1990. He wore a hat at his daughters wedding.”
“A cowboy hat,” Aaron replied. “A very dressy cowboy hat. It matched the fancy cowboy boots he had on.” Aaron and the rest of us tried to hold in an outburst of laughter, but it wasn’t going to happen. We’d begun to draw attention from people besides just Grandma Barb.
“Gran always made the boys take off their hats in pictures,” Becky giggled
I sat there between my two cousins who I hadn’t seen in six years. Becky had gotten married and had three kids since that last time I saw her. Angie had been married twice, but it was as if we hadn’t missed a beat. The internet had brought the thirteen hundred miles between us seem like feet.
We spent two days in that church, with three hundred other people, all of them in one way or another related to us. The Cooley’s had lived in Grant County Wisconsin since 1866. The first grave stone in the main cemetery, the one where my Great-Grandparents are, is for Charles H. Cooley, and eighth generation American, the first to live in Lancaster. I’m the sixteenth generation, and my dad is the only Cooley boy that doesn’t live within 100 miles of where my Great-Grandma used to live in Lancaster.
I was eleven the first time I remember going to Grant County, my little brother was eight. We have lived there for nine months when I was two, but I don’t remember much about it on account of being two. I mostly Aaron catching on fire behind the television because my aunt wasn’t watching him, but that may be an implanted memory from hearing the story so many times. My grandfather still has the chard walker in his basement, so I at least know that part of the story is true.
I’d meet quite a few of my Mid-Western relatives, my three grandmothers had visited for birthday or holidays, my aunt Rhonda and cousin Aaron had been out a few times. I knew enough to get by, or at least that’s what I thought. I figured my dad’s family would be a lot like my mom’s: big, but small enough to remember who everyone was and who they belonged to. I had no idea my dad at nineteen cousins, and nine seconds cousins, at the time. Put on top of that my dad’s three siblings, and all my Grandfather’s siblings, the population of Lancaster Wisconsin at least doubled at a Cooley family function.
My parents decided it would be best for the four of us to take a minivan half way across the United States for my Great-Grandmother’s 75th birthday and my dad’s twenty year high school reunion. The twenty one hour drive in July heat was about as much fun as it sounds if not less.
What I remember most about my first day in Grant County, was a piece poster board duct taped to a road sign the announced the population of North Andover: nine. The bright green poster board read: “Grandma Cooley’s seventy-fifth birthday at the Lancaster fair grounds. July 18th. Rod and family are coming from New Hampshire! So you have no excuse for not coming Tony.” I pinched my brother and pointed to it.
As we started to laugh uncontrollably, my dad in his deep slightly mid-western accent said: “Grant County is a lot different than back home. It’s a big deal that we’re here.”
My dad steered our silver minivan into the short driveway of small grey house, a white Buick Le Saber in the open garage. Three large cement deer sat in the front yard looking toward the Lancaster Elementary School, all three with large metal chains around their necks which were secured to the outer wall of the basement of the house: Great-Grandma Cooley’s. I learned later that those deer had been stolen as a school prank on more than one occasion, but always returned in a day or so, normally with a note attached apologizing to my Great-Grandparents.
“Go in through the garage and tell Gran you need to use the bathroom,” my dad told Josh. My brother opened the sliding door and jumped down out of the van and ran into the house, my dad shortly behind him, my mom and I in line behind him.
“Gran, I’m just using your bathroom,” my brother yelled, then looked to my father for directions.
“All ya kids ever do is come and use my bathroom and steal my cookies,” the soothing thick mid-western voice of Gran Cooley called from the living room. I heard a chair push back and her gentle footsteps across the floor.
A 4 foot 3 inch woman, with curly white hair that stood in the threshold between the living room and kitchen: “You son-of-a-bitch.” She grabbed a Grant County Harold Independent, rolled it and smacked my dad several times in the arm. There stood a woman the clearly fit the description my father always gave her: the little Chihuahua nipping at anyone within reach. “Thirteen- hundred miles and ya can’t wait ‘til you get to your ma’s to use the bathroom!”
“Sorry Grandma,” he said, looking at the floor. My dad, a six foot four easily 200 pound man stood powerless, at the mercy of this four foot three maybe 100 pound woman. But aren’t we all powerless against our grandmothers? “I had to stop to say hi.”
“Well fine then, but you’re taking me out for pizza then,” Gran Cooley wasn’t supposed to eat pizza because of her cholesterol levels, my dad reminded her of this fact. He knew Gran was trying to trick him into taking her to Happy Joes, a small pizza chain in South Western Wisconsin. “You son-of-a-bitch, I’m 74 years old if I want a piece of pizza I’ll have a piece of pizza!”
As I sat in the church that day, eleven years later between Becky and Angie, who I met for the first time that day I went to Great-Grandma’s for the first time. I felt amazingly jealous. I had spent a total of six months with my Great-Grandma. Six months of my twenty-two years, and they had their whole lives, memories that I’ll never have, I’ll only have second hand stories. As much as I loved my Great-Grandma, and loved the few stories I have of her in my life, I selfishly want so many more. Angie, Becky and Aaron remember riding her chained up cement deer. All I have pepperoni pizza and the look of surprise across an old woman’s face the day we showed up at her house that day, but that’s two things more than most people my age can say they have from their great-grandparents. Even as we laid her in the ground that cold November afternoon — as sad and heart breaking as it was — I could tell we all felt extremely lucky to have known her, and have a Grandma that lived to see her oldest of her forty-three grandchildren turn forty-five.
