brian's grandma wolfe passed away on january 31st as a result of pancreatic and liver cancer. shortly after christmas, she was given the diagnosis and the prognosis of about two months to live. i spoke with a couple of my girlfriends who had both lost their grandmothers to the same types of cancer, and both warned that the deterioration was rapid. at our first opportunity, bdub, heather and i went down to west virginia to spend some time with her.
she had been moved to a nursing home just the day before we got in, and she was none too happy about it. however, nothing in the world lifted her spirits more than being with her grandchildren. this was last tuesday, and the morning after we returned to new york, she passed. we headed back down for the funeral just a few days later.
no one in this world besides betty holliday wolfe has ever made me feel so exotic and glamorous. i remember taking his grandma to the parkette once when we were in for a visit. all it took was ordering bleu cheese dressing for my salad to give her cause to exclaim "oh my!" and grin at me with googly eyes. to be honest, it made me feel a little uncomfortable but secretly i loved it.
she always asked me how i stayed so thin and looking so good, and no one asks me that.
she loved music, and any time she heard it, she'd ferociously tap her thigh and tell tale of when she sang alto with the sweet adelines and wore a gold dress and gold shoes. like me, she also loved glamour.
she made brian crazy sometimes (the "buying a short set at walmart story"--in which she gets stuck in an electric buggy and nearly triggers bdub's fight-or-flight mechanism-- is a story for another time). she could be wildly negative. she hated her building, and claimed that everyone in there gossiped about everyone else...yet many of these residents were at her viewing this week, talking about how she was their good friend. she could be intensely critical.
she was extremely particular about food, refusing to receive meals-on-wheels any more because she didn't care for the vegetables (or any vegetables, for that matter- nothing but meat and potatoes for her). she ate her fast food and hot dogs and burgers like a bird. if after a family dinner you ever complained of being tired or full, she would say, "well, you know what your problem is! you ATE TOO MUCH!!". she drank nothing but coca cola; i think towards the end brian's dad convinced her to atleast switch to rootbeer so as to avoid the caffeine.
bdub's paternal grandfather split when his dad was a boy, and his grandmother raised his dad in what was essentially the clarksburg ghetto. she was poor, considered an outcast at the time, and worked hard her entire life; i don't believe she ever left clarksburg. she was preceded in death by an infant daughter, jack's twin sister, jill ann...and when we think of what can make a person bitter in their old age, of why grandma wolfe could be so negative, how quickly we forget the hand she was dealt in her life.
yet she always loved music. and she adored brian. i believe that he gets his musical talent from her....maybe she is the link that led him to discover his true happiness and passion? the story goes that little brian and his mom and dad returned to west virginia from maryland on account of grandma wolfe's knee operation (who else did she have to help her with her recovery?). perhaps if it weren't for grandma wolfe, they never would have come back to wv....thus the wolfeinelli love story would never have happened.
godspeed grandma wolfe. thank you for always making me feel like you were just tickled to have me as a granddaughter-in-law. may you sing alto with the angels in heaven, dancing time steps and keeping a good, strong beat in your gold shoes.
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