Gather ‘Round the Table

 

For some strange reason, the year my younger brother Tim made his First Holy Communion in 1970, our parish thought it would be a great idea for that to occur on Thanksgiving Day instead of the customary springtime like I had two years prior. Aside from making it difficult to find Communion attire, greeting cards and decorations at that time of the year, it posed a great quandary for my parents: Do we hold a Communion party and skip the traditional Thanksgiving dinner or host a crowd for turkey and all the fixings?

Of course, a hue and cry rose from those attached to a turkey dinner when my mom tossed out the idea to toss the turkey that year. So, my mom, to appease the family, opted for a sit-down, turkey dinner for 28 people. At that time, my dad had not yet put in our game room, and we had a small kitchen, and a dining room that only accommodated our family of six comfortably, and a living room.

To help my mother, both of my grandmothers offered to cook a turkey.

On the big day, my family set up folding tables and card tables everywhere and both sides of my family came for the happy occasion. My paternal and maternal grandparents were very different in temperament. My widowed Grandma Aggie Lane went to Mass most every day and never swore except for one time when my youngest brother, David, squirted her in the butt with a hose, and she exclaimed, “Damn you, David.” It was shocking and still lives in family lore.

My maternal Grandma, Gert Hughes, and her mother, my Great-Grandmother Cornelia Ledergerber, swore like crazy (not F bombs, but vulgarities.) Grandma Gert smoked, read novels, and loved soap operas. She believed in God but was not nearly as devout at Grandma Aggie.

If you want to create tension, throw four cooks into a tiny kitchen to prepare a massive Thanksgiving dinner. The Hughes side of the family made their stuffing with an egg in it, and the Lane side of the family liked their stuffing dry. One side liked the jellied canned cranberries and the others liked whole cranberries. My Grandma Leder was old school and wanted to sew her turkey shut with twine after stuffing it, while Grandma Aggie thought the new metal wires that closed the cavity and came on the turkey was a great innovation much to the disgust of Grandma Leder.

Each of these women had their own method for making gravy, and as they stood in the kitchen with their turkey drippings in cups trying to concoct their “best” gravy, my Uncle Bill on his way to get a drink, called out, “I’m next in line to make gravy!”

To which my Grandma Leder replied, “Oh, Billy you’re full of sh*t.”

I neglected to share that among the guests that day was my dad’s Aunt Gert, Grandma Aggie’s older sister, who was officially known as Sr. Euphemia, a Mercy nun.

When Grandma swore, my mom shushed her, “Grandma, the nun.”

And Grandma replied, “Ah, the hell with the nun.”

When dinner was ready, we all sat down for a memorable Thanksgiving dinner. Although my grandparents’ personalities were very different, they always respected one another and, in fact, liked and got along well, even under stressful circumstances like competing to make the best gravy.

And why? Because they shared something. They loved us.

There’s a home movie of that Communion Party/Thanksgiving Dinner, and on it are all my grandmas, clad in their aprons, crammed in the kitchen. In the next segment, Grandma Leder is standing with several of her great-grandchildren, including my brother, Tim, the Communion boy, and she’s hugging us and giving Tim a kiss.

It doesn’t matter who makes the best gravy, how you stuff your turkey, or if you’re stuck sitting on a telephone book at a card table. What matters is if there is love around your table, and this Thanksgiving, I hope you have an abundance of it.

Happy Grandparents Day!

Where Was I . . .  Best Job Ever!

This month we celebrate National Grandparents Day on September 9. I have been a grandmother for a little over three years now to two little girls, and I can say that next to being a mom, it is the best job ever! But it is not without responsibilities. You’ve probably seen those cutesy sayings like, “The best part of being a grandparent is spoiling your grandchildren and being able to give them back at the end of the day.”

That’s funny and true to an extent, but I think that reduces the role of grandparents too much. I think grandparents are essential, and you are blessed if you have or had one in your life. In fact, the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead said, “Everyone needs to have access both to grandparents and grandchildren in order to be a full human being.”

I certainly do enjoy treating my granddaughters, but I want to be more than a soft touch for cookies and toys. So what kind of grandma do I want to be? What do I want to do for my grandchildren? What do I want to teach them? When I’m long gone, what do I want them to remember about me?

To answer this, I thought back to my own grandparents and what I remember about them. I was fortunate to know two great-grandparents and four grandparents. These are some of the things they gave me of which I’d like to pass on. They gave me a sense of who I was. They told me stories of who they were, where they came from, what their grandparents, parents and my own parents were like as well as telling me what their own lives were like. Through their stories, they picked up my little life and wove into our family tapestry and made me feel I belonged to something bigger than myself.

They provided good examples and passed on their faith. They were funny and fun. They taught me that although times change, people essentially are the same. They talked about bullies in school, boys who tried to get “fresh” with them, and mean bosses they worked for. They passed on their resilience. One of my great-grandma’s favorite things to say was, “Oh, kiddo, it’s a great life if you don’t weaken.” 

They also passed on their hope that there was something even better waiting in the next life.

They demonstrated love. I never, ever had to wonder if they loved me. I can still think back to times when I’d sleep over at my grandma’s. We’d lie in bed together, and she’d say let’s hold hands until we fall asleep. Or I can see my grandpap when we’d come to visit, opening his arms and saying, “Where’s pup-pup’s girl?”

So yeah, spoil the grandkids, but also give them something that’s lasts a lifetime like your faith, your hope and your love. 

This originally appeared in the September 2018 issue of Northern Connection magazine.

Happy Mother's Day

Where Was I . . .Being Them

This originally appeared in the May 2018 of Northern Connection magazine.

By Janice Lane Palko

“What is that on your foot?” I was around seven years old when I asked my mother that question. “It’s a callus,” she said. “You’ll have them when you’re older.” No way, I thought. My feet are never going to look like that.

“What’s that thing?” I was around eight years old when I asked my grandmother that question. “It’s a needle threader,” she said. “I can’t see the eye of the needle anymore. You slip this little metal loop through the needle’s eye, and then put the thread though the loop. Then you pull the loop through the eye, and it threads the needle. When you get older and can’t see as well, you’ll need one.” No way, I thought to myself. My eyes are never going to get that bad.

“Oh, my leg,” moaned my great-grandmother as she came down the steps. “What’s wrong with your leg?” I was about 10 when I asked that. “Things wear out when you get older,” she said. “I hope you don’t get knees like mine.” No chance, of that I thought. I’m never getting old.

Never say never.

Flash forward to today where I regularly remove calluses from my heels, and I now use a needle threader. By the time, you read this, I will be home recovering from knee surgery. I tore a meniscus in my left knee seven years ago, and after babying it and enduring pain off and on, an MRI recently revealed that I now have an acute meniscus tear and insufficiency fractures, for which the surgeon plans to perform a subchondroplasty. The procedure entails drilling into my leg bones (yikes!) and injecting them with calcium phosphate, which will then harden and repair my bones.

As I was limping down the stairs the other day after receiving that diagnosis, I felt a stab of pain in my knee. “Oh, my leg,” I reflexively yelled, and then stopped in my tracks as I flashed backward four and half decades and realized that I have now become my great-grandmother. And not only her but my grandmother and my mother.

But then it occurred to me that maybe that is not so bad. My vows to never to turn into them was a revulsion to aging, which I don’t think anyone embraces, and not the people they are and were. My mom, grandmothers, and great-grandmother were all loving, kind and giving–women who would sacrifice anything for their loved ones.

So yeah, even though I don’t like getting older, I’m okay with turning into them because being them is a pretty admirable way to be.

Happy Mother’s Day!