As the headlights move through the darkness I wake up just in time. I rub my eyes and hear my parents whispering in the front seat, trying not to wake seven sleeping children. I sit up and my mom turns from the front seat and smiles at me. I look out the windows and see the little town moving slowly by us under it's sparse streetlights. There's the church with a tall steeple and the graveyard that my cousins and I used to run around in in the dark. Before we were sternly told how disrespectful that is. We didn't know. We don't know any of the lives buried under that soil. Not yet. The church makes my heart beat faster, it looks the way churches are supposed to look. I'm happy we're home. I lived in this town a short time compared to all the other places in my life, but this house more than any is home to me.
We pull into the driveway and I hear my brothers and sisters start to wake up. I'm the first out of the car. It's cold outside and I left my jacket behind so I rush on toward the door. I walk into the garage first and it smells of my Grandpa. Of hard work and of repairs around the house. There's another smell intruding though, this one coming from the house and my mouth waters in anticipation. My parents have caught up with me and my mom stops to knock softly on the door before opening it without waiting for an answer. None is needed. All nine of us try and pack into the tiny landing and we must look like fish in a barrel from my Grandma's perch in the kitchen. She laughs at us as we wiggle out of our shoes and come up the three steps into her waiting arms. She's still dressed even though the clock on the stove says that it's midnight. The stove catches my attention and it stays there. Nothing makes me feel as loved by my Grandma than this. There's a hot pot of soup on the stove, zummaborscht, which will be comfort food to me as long as I live. It occurs to me that she's cooked a huge pot of soup for us so that we have something warm to put in our stomachs before bed. Cooking for this many is a big task, especially given all the cooking she'll be doing from early the next morning. Somehow she knows exactly the moment to put the soup on the stove so that it's hot when we get there, but hasn't been cooking so long that her potatoes have boiled to nothing. This is a skill she'll try to teach me long years from now, that I will fail to comprehend. My mom embraces her mom and a feeling of rightness fills the house. I belong here.
My Grandma has a slight air of relief about her, and I know instinctively that she's been praying for our safe journey. She asks my dad about the weather, and he talks quietly to her about it. My Grandma can tell God to change the weather, I think to myself. At this age, I can't imagine even God not listening to Grandma. It's still many years before I will see tears fall on her soft beautiful cheeks, mourning her own prayers not answered, loss hanging over her like a blanket. Right now, I've never seen my Grandma really cry. She gets slightly teary-eyed when she says goodbye to us. But right now is a time for hello, and she looks happy and calm. There is an air of quiet around her, it's calming to be near her. Or maybe it's the soup. But something is wrong. I smile to myself as I walk through the kitchen and attached dining room into the living room. The lights are out except the tall lamp in the corner, and my Grandpa sits in his rocking chair with his bible open in his lap, hands still on the pages, head back. He's asleep. I lean forward and put my arms around him and he wakes up and his hands come up to my back. I love the way he says, "Hello, Melanie" with the emphasis on the greeting and his breath coming out as he says my name. It sounds like he's been waiting for me, and it makes me feel special. My family crowds in behind me, my Grandma laughing that Grandpa managed to sleep through our noisy entrance, he must be getting old. But it's a joke. They don't seem old to me, they never have.
We all crowd back into the dining room and my mom grabs the bowls that are ready and waiting by the stove and Grandma ladles out soup and she brings us each a bowl and a bun that I know were made earlier that day. I could have eaten a feast ten minutes before entering the door and I would still want a bowl of soup when I arrive here. We've never come to this house at any time of day without a hot pot of zummaborscht waiting for us.
My parents tell us to hurry, we need to get to bed, and the kitchen is strangely quiet as we all concentrate on eating. Grandpa walks up behind me and put his hands in my collar. They're cold - they always are. They tremble slightly and I giggle. The shaking seems like a part of him, it's not anything that scares me. It almost feels like he does it to tickle me, and it won't occur to me for long years yet to be truly concerned about it. And not for a few years more to actually be scared. My Grandpa is invincible. I'm as certain of this as I am that there will always be soup in Grandma's kitchen when I arrive.
As soon as my stomach is full I realize how tired I am, and my sisters and I walk into the little yellow bedroom where a bed is already made for us. I stumble through getting into bed in a fog and am asleep before my mom comes in to turn out the light and say goodnight.
The next morning I awake to the sounds of clanging in the kitchen, the shower running down the hall and the smell of brewing coffee. I get up and walk into the kitchen in my pyjamas and see my mom and Grandma already dressed. My mom motions to the clock, it's ten-thirty already. She tells me to wake my sisters and get dressed. I walk back into the room and us girls laugh as we get ready, pulling our new clothes out of our bags. We always have new clothes for holidays at Grandmas, and I'm not sure when or why the tradition started.
By the time I'm dressed with my teeth brushed, I come back into the kitchen and some of my aunts and uncles and cousins have arrived with things to put in the oven to warm before lunch. Everyone is hugging and saying hello, talking about the weather and the road conditions for those of us who have driven a long way. It already smells amazing in the house, turkey that my Grandma has had to set her alarm to put in, and my aunts and my mom are moving around the kitchen. Each has a purpose and they're peeling potatoes, doing dishes, chopping and seasoning, all the while visiting and drinking coffee. My uncles are gathered around the dining room table and are laughing, teasing. My uncle John laughs, a sound that always makes me want to giggle myself, and he talks about the fishing trip he took that summer. My uncle Jake is talking about the one that got away, and they're discussing how long it is before they're able to ice fish, an activity that has never had an ounce of appeal to me.
I go off in search of my cousins who are gathered in the basement. I wiggle again through the landing, pausing to give a hug to my Uncle Henry and Auntie Margaret. Calling to Amy and Leah that we'll be downstairs. Cindi and Jen are downstairs, in the second kitchen. They've found pickles. I laugh in excitement as we all grab one, and I studiously avoid the pot on the stove. I looked in one once and found nothing but a pair of chicken feet, it was like something out of a horror movie. There are pies on the counter though, and from the smell, I know there are cabbage rolls in the oven. If I could figure out how to steal one of those as easily as a pickle, I'd do it but for now the pickle is the perfect appetizer. Our parents pretend not to notice that we all eat three or four pickles before lunch and we pretend we're doing something sneaky by stealing them. Amy and Leah join us and we all hug and giggle. Cindi's heard a rumor that this year we actually get the corner table, which will be used for that game the uncles all play after lunch, that I can't pronounce. This is big news. It's usually where the cool girls in the family sit - Becky and Angie, Heather and Lisa. I'm excited. It feels like a certain type of graduation, not having to sit on the floor with all the little kids.
Before long everyone has arrived and an endless line of food has come down the stairs where long tables are set up. It's noisy and there are people everywhere. A toddler is crying somewhere, and suddenly my Grandpa moves to the head of the table and everyone is quiet. He prays a blessing over the food and over our family, and as he says amen there's a slight press towards the food. We're not sure why we do it. We know the adults serve themselves first, and then the kids that need help getting their food. I'm okay with waiting as long as there is ham and cabbage rolls when I arrive. I could care less about the turkey. I missed the cabbage rolls one year and I was devastated. We all get our food and we sit at the corner table and I glance over at my older cousins and suddenly where they're sitting seems cooler to me, and I wonder if I'll always want to be older. I hear adults talk about wanting to be younger and I can't imagine it.
After lunch there is pie and endless pots of coffee. We get chased from our table so that our uncles can play their game, and someone starts a game of Balderdash and immediately, hilarity ensues. This is a game that adults and older cousins play and it's another thing I can't wait to graduate to. I sit on a couch next to the table and listen for a little while. Listening is almost as much fun as playing even though I don't quite understand some of the definitions. Before long Cindi taps me and says she's taken over the blue room and I dash upstairs. We sit in the blue bedroom, where my parents slept the night before. There's a little crib in the corner that all of us have slept in at one time or another but there's no babies in the family right now. Before we know it, our cousins will start having babies, then ourselves but that seems very far away to us right now. We sit and talk about frustrations with our brothers, about boys and whether any of us has gotten our period since the last time we've talked. We spend the afternoon this way, venturing out to get another piece of pie, or a bun with some cold turkey or ham for dinner.
Night falls and those who have further to drive start to go and it's the morning, only in reverse. People everywhere, hugs and safe travels. We are staying a few more days and we make plans to do a big girls shopping trip at Value Village the next day. Before long everyone is gone, and we're alone again in my Grandma and Grandpa's house. My house, I think to myself strangely. I grab a book and curl up in my Grandfather's rocking chair. On another family gathering, long years from now, and across the country I will sit here again. My baby girl will be tired and I will need to put her down for a nap and I will sit in this chair and hold her and feel the rough fabric under my hands and the wooden arms worn smooth by my Grandpa's hands. I will rock in that chair in the dark and tears will roll down my face because he's gone. Because he never met my baby girl and because somehow I grew up. Somehow those days in Grandma's basement are over, and I don't know how that happened. Because the cemetery that we used to play in now holds two people who I dearly love.
The sounds outside the door are still the same. Someone is talking about old Balderdash definitions and they're laughing. I wonder if they'll wake my baby, but I can't imagine a better sound. Family. Laughter. We are still laughing. The smells are the same. Someone remembered to bring cabbage rolls. There'd better be some left when I'm finished.
We pull into the driveway and I hear my brothers and sisters start to wake up. I'm the first out of the car. It's cold outside and I left my jacket behind so I rush on toward the door. I walk into the garage first and it smells of my Grandpa. Of hard work and of repairs around the house. There's another smell intruding though, this one coming from the house and my mouth waters in anticipation. My parents have caught up with me and my mom stops to knock softly on the door before opening it without waiting for an answer. None is needed. All nine of us try and pack into the tiny landing and we must look like fish in a barrel from my Grandma's perch in the kitchen. She laughs at us as we wiggle out of our shoes and come up the three steps into her waiting arms. She's still dressed even though the clock on the stove says that it's midnight. The stove catches my attention and it stays there. Nothing makes me feel as loved by my Grandma than this. There's a hot pot of soup on the stove, zummaborscht, which will be comfort food to me as long as I live. It occurs to me that she's cooked a huge pot of soup for us so that we have something warm to put in our stomachs before bed. Cooking for this many is a big task, especially given all the cooking she'll be doing from early the next morning. Somehow she knows exactly the moment to put the soup on the stove so that it's hot when we get there, but hasn't been cooking so long that her potatoes have boiled to nothing. This is a skill she'll try to teach me long years from now, that I will fail to comprehend. My mom embraces her mom and a feeling of rightness fills the house. I belong here.
My Grandma has a slight air of relief about her, and I know instinctively that she's been praying for our safe journey. She asks my dad about the weather, and he talks quietly to her about it. My Grandma can tell God to change the weather, I think to myself. At this age, I can't imagine even God not listening to Grandma. It's still many years before I will see tears fall on her soft beautiful cheeks, mourning her own prayers not answered, loss hanging over her like a blanket. Right now, I've never seen my Grandma really cry. She gets slightly teary-eyed when she says goodbye to us. But right now is a time for hello, and she looks happy and calm. There is an air of quiet around her, it's calming to be near her. Or maybe it's the soup. But something is wrong. I smile to myself as I walk through the kitchen and attached dining room into the living room. The lights are out except the tall lamp in the corner, and my Grandpa sits in his rocking chair with his bible open in his lap, hands still on the pages, head back. He's asleep. I lean forward and put my arms around him and he wakes up and his hands come up to my back. I love the way he says, "Hello, Melanie" with the emphasis on the greeting and his breath coming out as he says my name. It sounds like he's been waiting for me, and it makes me feel special. My family crowds in behind me, my Grandma laughing that Grandpa managed to sleep through our noisy entrance, he must be getting old. But it's a joke. They don't seem old to me, they never have.
We all crowd back into the dining room and my mom grabs the bowls that are ready and waiting by the stove and Grandma ladles out soup and she brings us each a bowl and a bun that I know were made earlier that day. I could have eaten a feast ten minutes before entering the door and I would still want a bowl of soup when I arrive here. We've never come to this house at any time of day without a hot pot of zummaborscht waiting for us.
My parents tell us to hurry, we need to get to bed, and the kitchen is strangely quiet as we all concentrate on eating. Grandpa walks up behind me and put his hands in my collar. They're cold - they always are. They tremble slightly and I giggle. The shaking seems like a part of him, it's not anything that scares me. It almost feels like he does it to tickle me, and it won't occur to me for long years yet to be truly concerned about it. And not for a few years more to actually be scared. My Grandpa is invincible. I'm as certain of this as I am that there will always be soup in Grandma's kitchen when I arrive.
As soon as my stomach is full I realize how tired I am, and my sisters and I walk into the little yellow bedroom where a bed is already made for us. I stumble through getting into bed in a fog and am asleep before my mom comes in to turn out the light and say goodnight.
The next morning I awake to the sounds of clanging in the kitchen, the shower running down the hall and the smell of brewing coffee. I get up and walk into the kitchen in my pyjamas and see my mom and Grandma already dressed. My mom motions to the clock, it's ten-thirty already. She tells me to wake my sisters and get dressed. I walk back into the room and us girls laugh as we get ready, pulling our new clothes out of our bags. We always have new clothes for holidays at Grandmas, and I'm not sure when or why the tradition started.
By the time I'm dressed with my teeth brushed, I come back into the kitchen and some of my aunts and uncles and cousins have arrived with things to put in the oven to warm before lunch. Everyone is hugging and saying hello, talking about the weather and the road conditions for those of us who have driven a long way. It already smells amazing in the house, turkey that my Grandma has had to set her alarm to put in, and my aunts and my mom are moving around the kitchen. Each has a purpose and they're peeling potatoes, doing dishes, chopping and seasoning, all the while visiting and drinking coffee. My uncles are gathered around the dining room table and are laughing, teasing. My uncle John laughs, a sound that always makes me want to giggle myself, and he talks about the fishing trip he took that summer. My uncle Jake is talking about the one that got away, and they're discussing how long it is before they're able to ice fish, an activity that has never had an ounce of appeal to me.
I go off in search of my cousins who are gathered in the basement. I wiggle again through the landing, pausing to give a hug to my Uncle Henry and Auntie Margaret. Calling to Amy and Leah that we'll be downstairs. Cindi and Jen are downstairs, in the second kitchen. They've found pickles. I laugh in excitement as we all grab one, and I studiously avoid the pot on the stove. I looked in one once and found nothing but a pair of chicken feet, it was like something out of a horror movie. There are pies on the counter though, and from the smell, I know there are cabbage rolls in the oven. If I could figure out how to steal one of those as easily as a pickle, I'd do it but for now the pickle is the perfect appetizer. Our parents pretend not to notice that we all eat three or four pickles before lunch and we pretend we're doing something sneaky by stealing them. Amy and Leah join us and we all hug and giggle. Cindi's heard a rumor that this year we actually get the corner table, which will be used for that game the uncles all play after lunch, that I can't pronounce. This is big news. It's usually where the cool girls in the family sit - Becky and Angie, Heather and Lisa. I'm excited. It feels like a certain type of graduation, not having to sit on the floor with all the little kids.
Before long everyone has arrived and an endless line of food has come down the stairs where long tables are set up. It's noisy and there are people everywhere. A toddler is crying somewhere, and suddenly my Grandpa moves to the head of the table and everyone is quiet. He prays a blessing over the food and over our family, and as he says amen there's a slight press towards the food. We're not sure why we do it. We know the adults serve themselves first, and then the kids that need help getting their food. I'm okay with waiting as long as there is ham and cabbage rolls when I arrive. I could care less about the turkey. I missed the cabbage rolls one year and I was devastated. We all get our food and we sit at the corner table and I glance over at my older cousins and suddenly where they're sitting seems cooler to me, and I wonder if I'll always want to be older. I hear adults talk about wanting to be younger and I can't imagine it.
After lunch there is pie and endless pots of coffee. We get chased from our table so that our uncles can play their game, and someone starts a game of Balderdash and immediately, hilarity ensues. This is a game that adults and older cousins play and it's another thing I can't wait to graduate to. I sit on a couch next to the table and listen for a little while. Listening is almost as much fun as playing even though I don't quite understand some of the definitions. Before long Cindi taps me and says she's taken over the blue room and I dash upstairs. We sit in the blue bedroom, where my parents slept the night before. There's a little crib in the corner that all of us have slept in at one time or another but there's no babies in the family right now. Before we know it, our cousins will start having babies, then ourselves but that seems very far away to us right now. We sit and talk about frustrations with our brothers, about boys and whether any of us has gotten our period since the last time we've talked. We spend the afternoon this way, venturing out to get another piece of pie, or a bun with some cold turkey or ham for dinner.
Night falls and those who have further to drive start to go and it's the morning, only in reverse. People everywhere, hugs and safe travels. We are staying a few more days and we make plans to do a big girls shopping trip at Value Village the next day. Before long everyone is gone, and we're alone again in my Grandma and Grandpa's house. My house, I think to myself strangely. I grab a book and curl up in my Grandfather's rocking chair. On another family gathering, long years from now, and across the country I will sit here again. My baby girl will be tired and I will need to put her down for a nap and I will sit in this chair and hold her and feel the rough fabric under my hands and the wooden arms worn smooth by my Grandpa's hands. I will rock in that chair in the dark and tears will roll down my face because he's gone. Because he never met my baby girl and because somehow I grew up. Somehow those days in Grandma's basement are over, and I don't know how that happened. Because the cemetery that we used to play in now holds two people who I dearly love.
The sounds outside the door are still the same. Someone is talking about old Balderdash definitions and they're laughing. I wonder if they'll wake my baby, but I can't imagine a better sound. Family. Laughter. We are still laughing. The smells are the same. Someone remembered to bring cabbage rolls. There'd better be some left when I'm finished.
