Eulogy for grandma

Hi. I’m Brynlee, and Darla Gentry was my Meemaw.

Every morning at 6:15, Meemaw texted me. All capitals, no punctuation. “GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE HAVE YOU EATEN.” Every single morning, for three years, since I got my phone. I didn’t always answer. She texted anyway.

My cousins showed me this week that she was texting all of them too. She had fourteen grandkids, and she sent fourteen texts every morning before her coffee.

Meemaw lived on the same eleven acres outside Nacogdoches her whole married life. She taught me to drive the riding mower when I was ten, which my mom did not know about until right now. Sorry, Mom.

She made fried pies, peach and apricot, and she’d keep a stack in a bread bag on the counter for whoever came by. If you came by and didn’t eat one, she’d ask if you were sick.

She came to every one of my volleyball games, even the away ones, even the bad ones. She brought a cowbell. I asked her once, nicely, to stop bringing the cowbell. The next game she brought two.

At church, we sing without instruments. Meemaw always sat on the third pew, left side, and she sang alto louder than anybody in the building. When I was little I sat next to her and tried to match her, and she’d lean down and whisper, “Sing out, baby, God can’t hear you mumbling.”

I’m going to sing out today.

What Meemaw taught me is that you check on people, every day, even when they don’t text back, and maybe most of all then. I’m going to try to do that for my cousins, because somebody has to now.

Meemaw, I texted your phone this morning at 6:15. All capitals. Good morning, sunshine. I ate.

Good morning. My name is Kervens. Lucienne Désir was my grandmother, my grann.

I need to tell you something first. My Kreyòl is not good. Grann’s English was not good either. For twenty-four years, we had about two hundred words in common, and most of them were about food.

It turned out that was enough.

Grann came to Miami from Cap-Haïtien in 1992, at fifty-five, to join my father, who had come ahead of her. She cleaned rooms at a hotel on Collins Avenue for twenty-two years. She could make a hotel bed, corners and all, faster than I can make a sandwich. She showed me once. She was eighty-two, and I lost.

When I started at the community college, I moved into her apartment to save money. I lived in her back bedroom for three years. Every night when I got home, there was a plate of rice and beans on the table with another plate on top to keep it warm, and she’d be in her chair with her rosary and the radio on. She’d point at the plate. I’d say, “Mèsi, Grann,” which means thank you. She’d say, “Eat,” in English. That was most of our conversation, every night, for three years, and I looked forward to it all day.

When I had a cold, she rubbed Vicks on my chest like I was five, and I let her. When I passed my nursing boards, she didn’t say anything. She went to the kitchen, came back with an envelope of cash and a whole fried fish, and put both on the table. I think that was a speech.

Grann went to Mass every morning at seven, until her knees stopped her. After that, she prayed the rosary twice a day at home, out loud, in Kreyòl. I don’t know all the words. I know the rhythm of it, though, because I heard it through the wall every night for three years, and it put me to sleep.

What Grann taught me is that you can love somebody completely without sharing a language. You feed them, and you pray for them through the wall.

Grann, I’m taking Kreyòl classes now. I’m slow. By the time I see you again, I want to have more than two hundred words. Mèsi, Grann. I’ll eat.

Good afternoon. I’m Aram, Siranush’s oldest grandson. In our family we called her Tatik, which is Armenian for grandmother. Half of Glendale called her Tatik too, including the man at the dry cleaner, who isn’t Armenian, and the mail carrier, who isn’t either.

Tatik came to Los Angeles from Beirut in 1976, with my grandfather, my mother and a set of coffee cups wrapped in newspaper. Those cups are the center of this story.

Every Sunday after church, the family came to her apartment for lunch. After lunch she made Armenian coffee, thick, in a little pot, and when you finished your cup, you turned it upside down on the saucer and waited. Then Tatik picked it up and read your future in the grounds.

She was very serious about it. She’d turn the cup slowly, frown, and say things like, “I see a long road. Also, you need a haircut.”

When I was twenty-four, she read my cup and said, “There is a girl with a bird.” I said, “Tatik, what does that mean?” She said, “I don’t know. I just read it. You figure it out.”

Two years later I met Nora at a friend’s wedding. She had a tattoo of a swallow on her wrist. I didn’t say anything for six months. When I finally brought Nora to Sunday lunch, Tatik took one look at her wrist, turned to me and said, “I told you.” Then she made Nora roll grape leaves for an hour, which Nora says was the real test.

The cups were a game, and for forty years they were also how Tatik found out what was going on with us. You can’t hide much from someone who’s looking at your coffee grounds and asking about your road. She heard about every new job, every breakup and every worry, and she never repeated a word, except to God, in church, when she lit a candle for each of us.

What she taught me is to sit with people long enough for them to tell you the truth. Make the coffee, and wait for the grounds to settle before you ask.

Tatik, Nora and I have your cups now. We’ll keep Sunday lunch. I can’t read the grounds, but I’m going to keep asking the questions. Rest in peace, and thank you for seeing us.

Praise God, and good morning. I’m Malcolm, Velma Lockridge’s grandson.

My mother was sixteen when she had me. So for most of my childhood, Grandma raised two of us in the same little house in Rockford, my mother and me, at the same time. My mother is sitting right here in the front row, and she gave me permission to say that. She also told me to say that Grandma was harder on her than on me, and that she’s still a little mad about it.

Grandma worked nights cleaning offices downtown, and she had one rule in that house. Homework at the kitchen table until nine o’clock, no exceptions, for both of us. My mother finished high school at that table, at night, with me in a high chair next to her. Twelve years later I was doing algebra in the same spot.

Grandma didn’t finish high school herself, so she couldn’t always help with the math. She read her Bible while we worked, and every so often she’d look over her glasses and say, “That look finished to you?” It never was. I asked her once when she slept, and she said, “I’ll sleep when you graduate.”

When I graduated from Northern Illinois, she wore a purple hat the size of a car tire. They asked her to take it off in the arena because it was blocking people’s view. She said, “They can look around it.” She kept it on, and she cried through the whole ceremony, and so did my mother, sitting right next to her. That night Grandma slept twelve hours, and she said it was the first full night’s sleep she’d had since 1991.

Grandma sang in the choir at her church for forty years, and she was a mother of the church for the last fifteen. She called everybody “baby,” including the pastor, and once, at a ribbon cutting, the mayor.

What she taught me is that you don’t need much to give someone a home. A kitchen table and somebody who stays up with you are enough.

Grandma, this is your homegoing, and you’ve earned the rest. Mama and I are going to keep the table. My son does his homework at it now. I sit with him until nine.

Hi. My name is Hazel, and I’m nine. Lorna Beckwith was my Grammy.

Grammy lived in Presque Isle, and she had a bird feeder outside her kitchen window. She knew the name of every bird that came. Chickadee. Nuthatch. Blue jay, which she called the loud one.

When I slept over, we got up early and sat at the window in our pajamas and counted birds. She wrote them in a notebook. I have the notebook now. Our record was forty-one birds in one morning.

Grammy, I’m going to keep filling the feeder. I’ll write down every bird. I’ll tell you if we beat forty-one.