Grandma Honey
enjoyed her cocktails or hi-balls as she called them. She used to
make pina coladas at holiday time or anytime. We would
gather together at her dingy little grey apartment on Lepage St-my
two brothers, Gary and Neil, Neil’s wife, Terri, my husband, Randy, &
sometimes our friend Bruce, who lived upstairs. Grandma’s live-in
boyfriend, Pat was an alcoholic, and was usually lying around in the
dining room. He was a sweet guy, though; Dad used to refer to him as
a “very amiable drunk.” When Pat had gone into the hospital
once, however, he detoxed pretty obnoxiously, and the nursing staff
was thrilled to be getting rid of him. Grandma called me to insist
that I pick them up and bring them home; I helped Pat to get dressed, pulling his pants
up over the adult sized diaper, while Grandma gathered up their
belongings. She called out, “Pat, you want me to pack this
straight jacket?” He firmly asserted, “Well sure! We paid for it.”
My family sat on
the lumpy cot and the few assorted chairs in the dining room, as she
busily moved about. She delighted in serving us. “You all want a
pina colada?” Hers were the absolute worst of all time. Sometimes
she ran out of her pineapple-coconut mix and even the rum, and would
just serve milk and vodka, calling it pina coladas. Even her wine
was terrible as it was the cheap sweet stuff, like Wild Irish Rose,
and when the bottle ran low, she would stretch it with water and/or
vodka.
She did love the
holidays and having us all over there to visit-my dad, who didn’t
drink anymore, and his progeny, for cocktails and food. Tiny and
eccentric, she knew all about Bourbon Street in its heyday, regaling
us with her tales of the French Quarter-gone-by over appetizers. For
special occasions, she would serve her specialty, which were canned
peach halves filled with a cream cheese-mayonnaise mixture. It was
awful. We all politely ate them time and again, year after year. Gary
told me as we drove to her house, “I’m going to tell her this
time that I really don’t like those peaches. I just can’t eat
them anymore.” Almost immediately upon arriving, after the
customary kissing that Grandma Honey insisted upon, she said, “And
Gary, I made your favorite peaches. Cause I know how much you love
them.” Gary and I silently and discreetly laughed to the point of
near explosion as he put one into his mouth and then another. Later
he told me, “They really weren’t that bad today.”
“Well, good,
cause you gonna have to keep eating ‘em now.”
Grandma Honey
died of pneumonia in a Tuscaloosa hospital. She had only been sick
for about a week. Stuart and I visited her in her final days, but I
couldn’t forgive myself for not visiting her sooner, before she
became ill. She had been asking me to come to Tuscaloosa, Alabama,
which was about 5 hours away, to visit with her, hoping that I would
spend a couple of nights in her little trailer that she shared with
Dad and Joanne, and to go out to lunch and dinner, but I never found
the time.
Our second day
in Tuscaloosa, for a brief moment away from the hospital, Dad took me
to a little health food store that was nearby. He checked out the
clearance items, saying that he always found good bargains there.
Once he had bought a discounted bottle of glucosamine for arthritis
and joint pain. At first he thought it was odd, he told me, that
they were not only chewable but also “meat” flavored.
When he finally realized that the remedy was meant for dogs, he
continued to take them anyway, until they were gone. After all, he
explained, he had already paid for them and they did help arthritis
and joint pain.
Dad and Joanne
arranged to bring my grandmother’s body home to New Orleans. My
half sisters from South Carolina and their families came to town for
her funeral. Neil, Gary, Stuart and Randy were asked to be
pallbearers. My flood of emotions really surprised me. Not only am
I a “wedding crier” but perhaps a funeral crier as well.
I watched all the men in my life carry my Grandma Honey’s coffin,
which was at once dear and moving. She had already made the
arrangements for her burial. She wisely didn’t leave it up to Dad
to decide what to do as he would have probably hoarded her. After
the church service, we met at the little rickety graveyard/mausoleum
where she was to be placed. My sister-in-law Terri leaned toward me,
whispering, “What’s your dad got in that old bag?” He was
carrying around a disheveled satchel that looked like it was from
World War II. The raggedy brown bag and the raggedy brown dad
blended together as one. I walked over. “Dad, what’s in the
bag?” Solemnly, he said, “It’s your Nanny.”
“What?!”
“It’s your
Nanny Edna’s ashes. She and Honey always wanted to be buried
together. Ask Randy to come over here and pull open this coffin.”
I let Terri know immediately what was in the bag and it was just the
kind of comic relief that one hopes for at a funeral, we laughed into
our hands. The situation would soon turn ugly, however. I looked
over to see Randy, my proper English professor, and our friend, Bruce
prying open Grandma Honey’s heavy coffin lid, and Dad slipped Aunt
Edna, satchel and all, in there beside her. It seemed that the
cemetery workers saw it too, and the burial officials were notified.
“What did you put in there, sir? You can’t bury another body in
here without proper documentation.” Dad was so furious. Of course
he could put Nanny in there. They were sisters, weren’t they? And
it was their wish, after all. How dare they tell him otherwise! It
would nearly come to blows between Dad, the cemetery supervisors and
the grave diggers. It was all too much for me and I began crying
again. Terri put her arm around me and we sat down together on
somebody’s broken down grave. We all waited around in the bright
sun and intense New Orleans heat among the crumbling tombs while
Neil, Gary and Randy worked to figure out a diplomatic solution that
didn’t involve fist fighting and apparently eventually came to one.
It would take paperwork, money and by the following day, the two
once eccentric sisters would eternally rest together.
