I Love You a Bushel & a Peck
Grandma Minnie died last month. She was ninety-two. She wasn't my relation but my husband's grandmother. All of my grandparents had died by the time I was twenty-five so that element of aged wisdom was missing from my life until she came in to it. I treasured Minnie and I loved her because she became my Grandma too.
Minnie was everything a grandmother should be; warm, inviting, ready to wrap you in a hug at a moments notice. She cooked, sewed and canned showing us younger women how it was done. Her homemaking skills were a product of a bygone era when women's rights and equality didn't have a lot of meaning. Most people today would, of course, consider her old-fashioned but I always found comfort in her domesticity and her warm, fresh from the oven cookies. Whenever Bruce and I visited, we women-folk would do the dishes after dinner while the men would go play pool in the basement. Then we would sit in the warm kitchen and play a board game or perhaps sit and chat about local goings on while her knitting needles clacked harmoniously with the sounds of the crickets and night birds.
The last time I saw Minnie she was in the lock down area of a seniors home. Diagnosed with dementia several years previously she needed a safe place and constant care. One of the nurses told me before I went in to visit her that even though she might not remember who I was she was a delightful, happily confused tenant. When I entered Grandma Minnie's room she was laying on her bed reading and re-reading a letter from her daughter, my husbands mother.
"Hello Minnie. It is so good to see you. I've missed you", I said.
Confusion registered on her face and I could see her struggling to remember who I was.
"I'm Susan, your grandson's wife".
"Susan. Well, I like your face. You look like a nice person. I think I like you. Come sit beside me". I did as I was told.
Minnie started to sing, "I love you a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck." She reached over and hugged me. Then she held my face between her hands. "Yes, I like your face. I can tell you are a nice person. I LOVE YOU. I love you a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck."
I stayed for another twenty minutes. I tried to make small talk about her lovely room and asked her how she liked living there. She would start a sentence and then her brow would furrow because she just couldn't hold on to the thought and express what she wanted to say. She would drift off and comment on the weather or talk about her slippers and then sing a bushel and a peck and hug me again. When it was time to go I gave her a final hug and said goodbye.
Walking out of the building tears sprung up in my eyes, not because I was sad, but because I left feeling that somewhere deep down Minnie could sense that I loved her and despite her failing memory I think she felt love for me. Today I look at the photos that I took of her that day, grateful that I captured her happy and grateful that I have a visual portrait of those cherished last moments with her. Yes, I loved her a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.
