Dear Grandma,
This past week was your 117th
birthday. Of course you weren't here to blow out any candles, you
died of Alzheimer’s when I was in junior high school.
My mom reminded us of your birthday and
suggested that we pay a tribute to you in some form.
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| Wanda Godfrey circa 1930 -hand colorized by Wanda Godfrey ~Any of these pictures can be viewed full-size with a click~ |
This is my tribute, an open letter to
you. I hope, I trust, that somehow, wherever, or however you are that
you enjoy it.
I should begin with the bad news.
Though I am very happily married we have no children, no great grand
children to tell you about. Sorry. Matthew has two beautiful boys that you
would just love though.
I live in Los Angeles as I have for the
past 14 years and work in television as a technician. Hollywood to be
exact. I like it here though, I miss my family and I'm looking for
ways to spend more extended time back East.
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| Stylized sketch of Jane Fonda by Wanda Godfrey |
I know you'd be proud of me. I am a
part time musician and even spent some time on the road as a
performer full time a few years ago. I play bass and sing and play
some other instruments. I composed recorded my own album and I'm
getting ready to do another. I played your old parlor guitar on one
ballad about a couple living in the wilds of Alaska during the gold
rush.
Sketches of dogs by Wanda Godfrey
I have your paints and brushes though I
haven't done very much with them. A couple of my paintings hang in my
parent's house and they're not too bad actually. I would like one day
to do more.
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| My Grandma's oils, pallet and brushes -I love the way they smell |
I remember once, while meeting you and
grandpa at the airport, you looked back at the jet that had just
flown you from Tampa and exclaimed how astounded you were that
something so large could “get off the ground”. I thought you
might be interested in some of the other things that have gotten off
the ground in the last 30 years.
It is currently the year 2012. Much is
the same. People still drive cars, go to work, come home to there
houses and raise families. There are parts of the world in peace and
parts at war, but none as large and devastating as the two world wars
you lived through.
A lot has changed too.
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| Watercolor landscape by Wanda Godfrey |
Like telephones in the 1920s and
televisions in the 1950s, computers are now in every home. You don't
have to wear a lab coat to operate one. In fact, grade school
children seem to have a better knack for them than adults.
Home computers are like a typewriter
and a small television together. Just like telephones, computers are
all connected all around the world. When I write a mail message to my
mom from where I live in California, at the push of a button it will
be delivered to her computer in New York in a few seconds. Pictures,
like your paintings I have shown here, can be sent this way. This
letter itself is posted on a sort-of virtual bulletin board where
anyone in the world can read it. It is in this I have the crazy hope
you'll somehow be able to see it too.
Computers have become our photo albums,
HiFi's, encyclopedias, bookshelves, art canvases, an arcade, a movie
theater, a travel agent. My wife and I do much of our shopping and
banking using our computer without leaving our home.
People do a lot of socializing using
computers too. My wife and I even met through our computers; this is
not uncommon. Some people say that doing so much of our socialization
“on-line” as we say is a bad thing, that we don't communicate
face-to-face enough much anymore. They may be right, but in truth, I
have more social this way than I ever was before.
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| Still life watercolor by Wanda Godfrey -I remember this vase |
If that wasn't enough, telephones
themselves have completely changed. Nearly everyone carries portable
radio phones in their pockets and purses. Those tiny little devices
can do many of the things our computers plus they are cameras and
even video recorders.
Most cameras don't need film anymore
by-the-way. Yes, good old Kodak, though they have their own 'digital'
cameras, is in pretty big trouble.
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| Watercolor of the Genesee River (I think) by Wanda Godfrey |
There are certainly things I want to
talk to you about besides the changes in technology, things not as
easy to talk about.
I miss you. I miss knowing you as an
adult. Even growing up I thought my parents were wonderful, but I
appreciate and enjoy their company even more as an adult. I know that
would be the case with you too and I feel robbed of the opportunity
to know you that way.
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| Grandma, my Mom and my Great Grandma |
I miss your enthusiasm for even the
smallest things, I miss your sitting and doing your crosswords and
telling me that I “make a better door than I do a window,” if I
stood in front of the TV.
I am sorry about a thing or too as well.
I am sorry for being such a brat when
you had some of my chocolate Easter bunny one year. I am sorry I
squirmed when you kissed and hugged me. I am sorry that when you were
in a coma, your last few days of life, that I couldn't talk to you.
They told me that you would be able to hear me, that I should talk to
you, but I just stood there. I didn't know what to say, or how to say
it. I just wanted to go back to the waiting room where I didn't have
to confront tubes and wires and a grandma that can't wake up. I am a
person of little regret, but my silence when I should have simply
told you that I loved you one last time, is one of them.
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| Acrylic with pallet knives of rocky seashore (unfinished) by Wanda Godfrey |
I love that you always called me your
“number one grandson” when we arrived for a visit. I loved that
you showed your enthusiasm for things by saying “Oh boys!” To
this day I make it a point to say that myself in your honor, and my
wife and I pluralize many words in the same vain.
I love that I inherited your thick head
of hair, less thick in some spots than others these days I'm afraid,
but I am almost fifty years old.
Can you believe it? Your grandson is
coming up on fifty!
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| "Joel at 2" by Wanda Godfrey |
Even more, I appreciate the artistic
creativity I got in great part from you. I make use of it every day
but I want to do more with it, much more.
I love that your favorite color was
unabashedly purple. It wasn't enough that your bedroom in Florida
had lilac walls and bed clothes, the lampshades were purple too
giving the whole place a lavender glow.
I love that you played violin and
basketball, two things I hadn't known until this week.
I love your sense of humor and have
learned to appreciate it more through my mom's stories. There are
things I say to this day, if someone drops something large and noisy,
I say what you would have: “drop your watch?” If their arms are
full with an awkward load: “Got a match?”
I wish that you could meet my wife,
you'd love each other, I just know it.
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| Oil painting of beach at sunset by Wanda Godfrey |
As I write this letter to you I realize
there are many things about you that I've forgotten and many more
things I don't know at all. I am going to talk with my mom and try to
fill in some of those blanks.
I will not forget.
Love,
"Your Number One Grandson,"
Joel
