Over Labor Day weekend, several of my college friends and I had a reunion at Edisto with our families. It was a wonderful weekend of swimming in the ocean, playing football in the sand, and laughing until our sides hurt.
On Saturday night, a few of us decided to play the card game Golf. All you really need to know about the game is that you're dealt four cards, but you can only look at two until the end of the game when you hope you have the lowest score.
Well, before we started, I just felt like I needed to make a confession, so I shared that I used to play this game with my grandmother, and since she was legally blind from macular degeneration, I used to cheat and peek at all four cards so I could up my chances of winning.
I know, I know, it's horrible, but clearly I still feel guilty about it since I'm still confessing to the crime 30 years later. That should count for something.
Anyway, after about the third round, when I finished with 28 while everyone else finished with 0's, 2's, and 3's, my friend's eight-year-old daughter looked at me and said, "Miss Katherine, I see why you had to cheat!" Touche, Kate, touche.
Back then, I really thought I was getting away with something, but now that I think about it, I realize Mimi had to know what I was doing. We are talking about a lady who read every book in the Darlington County Library and graduated magna cum laude from Queens College . . . she was no dummy. Plus, macular degeneration caused her to lose her central vision, not all of her vision. So the question is, if she knew I was cheating, why didn't she stop me?
After thinking about this for a few days, I can only come up with one answer: LOVE.
Because that's what grandmothers do- they spoil their grandchildren with love, whether that means letting them win at cards, baking them obscene amounts of homemade chocolate chip cookies, or buying them enough Barbie clothes and shoes to make Imelda Marcos jealous.
Grandmothers are lucky because they don't have to be the enforcers. They've been the disciplinarians as parents, so now it's their turn for fun. Life experience has taught them not to sweat the small stuff. Mimi knew my mom was providing structure and setting boundaries for me to ensure I wouldn't wind up on the mean streets of Rock Hill, so she was free to conspire with me for more than a few shenanigans, usually at my mom's expense.
More often than not, Mimi lived by the motto "What my baby wants, my baby gets." So when I asked for a basketball and a goal for Christmas, she was happy to oblige. The only problem was, my mom wasn't exactly on board with this plan. Not wanting a basketball goal attached to the side of her house, Mom only bought the basketball, thinking that would be enough to satisfy me and thus ending the story.
Not quite.
Mimi quickly took matters into her own hands. She bought a goal and hired some of the young waitstaff at her retirement home to come bolt it to the house while my mom was at work. When Mom pulled into the driveway that afternoon, there I was, shooting layup after layup, pleased as punch, and there wasn't really anything she could do about it. Mimi-1, Suzanne-0.
Sometimes I watch my mom with my boys and think, "Man, she never would have let me do that when I was little." Of course she wouldn't have, she wasn't my grandmother. A grandmother's love is unique and irreplaceable. No one will ever love you like a grandmother because no one else can.
Hopefully, you can relate to this story. Hopefully, you had, or you still have, a grandmother, an aunt, a great aunt, a neighbor, or a family friend who loved you to the moon and back. A Mimi, a Nanny, a Ma, or a Gigi, a loved one who sugared you up and spoiled you rotten and then laughed and heaved a sigh of relief as she watched you get in the car with your parents to go back home.
So much of who I am was shaped by my Mimi. She taught me the importance of reading good books, serving the church, and treating neighbors like family. Mimi was the epitome resilience, demonstrating her strength time and time again as she refused to let sickness or loss define her life.
I wish Mimi could have met Alex and the boys. She would give Alex a little love pat and ask him if he'd ever thought about shaving his beard, and she'd eat goldfish and drink bottled Cokes with the boys every day at five o'clock. It's weird how some of the most important people in your life never have the chance to get to know some of the other most important people in it.
When I was little, I didn't realize Mimi was letting me cheat at Golf (and Go Fish and Speed too, if I'm being honest). And I didn't realize how much I would miss her when she was gone. As a child, I took Mimi's true unconditional love for granted, but as an adult, I realize what a blessing she was. I would love to have one more day with her, one more card game, one more Nick at Nite marathon, one more time hearing her tell me she loves me "a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck."
By now, I'm sure it's pretty obvious that you should never take me to Vegas to play cards- I'd probably get us thrown out of the casino within the first five minutes. But that's okay . . . I already hit the jackpot a long time ago by having Mimi in my life.
Labels: family
