ninanevermore

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I used to work with a woman name Lauri W., who was hands down one of the sweetest people I've ever met. I had a sort of Mom-crush on her, in that she was everything I wanted in a replacement mother and I secretly wanted her to adopt me. She had a couple of young-adult sons who gave her a lot of grief and stress, so I figured a no-fuss daughter such as myself wouldn't be too much of a burden and could perhaps have been a benefit, since I never needed bailing out of jail like her real kids. Perhaps I should have spoken up and asked if she was open to the idea of taking me in.

As sweet and nurturing as Lauri was, her own mother had not been quite the opposite. Lauri learned to nurture not by being nurtured, but by raising her younger siblings because their mother often got drunk and disappear for days, leaving Lauri in charge. Often there was no food in the house, she told me, and she babysat for neighbors to earn money so she could buy groceries to feed her younger siblings. The neighbors had to swear they wouldn't tell her mother they were paying Lauri, because he mother got angry if she found out Lauri was buying food instead of allowing her mother to buy it. The problem was, her mother too forgot she hadn't gone shopping before going on a bender.

Lauri's one positive role model growing up, she told me, was her Oma.

"Your grandmother was German?" I asked her, being familiar with the term Oma from other people in my life of German descent that had Omas of their own.

"My mother's parents both were. She was a funny little thing, no more than 5 feet tall in her shoes, and tough as could be. My Opa, I didn't get along with him much. He was a mean drunk. But my Oma was something else." She shook her head, smiling broadly. Talking about her Oma seemed to make her happy.

She told me her Oma had some very strict, but strange, ideas about morality. Lauri had gone to a bowling ally with some girlfriends when she was 16. When she told her grandmother about the outing, her Oma hit the roof.

"What! You go to bowling ally! No, no granddaughter of mine should go to bowling ally! Only whores go to bowling allies!"

"Really? Whores? At bowling allies? I had no idea," I said.

"I've never talked to anyone else who thought that," Lauri admitted. She told me she still went bowling with her friends, but didn't tell her grandmother about it any more.

Her favorite story about her grandmother was the time her grandfather almost hit her in front of Lauri. She said her grandfather was a big man, well over 6 feet tall. He had both a drinking problem and short tempter.

"They fought all the time when he was drinking. Once, they were arguing and my Oma she said something that really ticked him off," Lauri said. "He raised his fist up in the air like he was going to punch her in the face." She raised her fist up to show me.

"My grandmother just looked at him like this," she set her face hard, narrowed her eyes and looked up like she was staring down a person a foot taller than she. "She said, 'Okay, you hit me, Papa. Go ahead.'" Lauri's expression changed to an evil grin. "'You do it. But. Don't. You. Go. To. Sleep!'"

I gasped. "What did he do?"

Lauri laughed. "He just looked at her for a few seconds with his fist up in the air. Then he lowered it, shook his head, and walked away." She wrinkled her nose, as the memory physically tickled her.

"I still miss her," Lauri said. "She died before my sons were born. I wish they could have met her."

She didn't say anything about missing her mother and grandfather, who were also both long gone (she told me she only had a brother and a sister left). Some people you can never let yourself forget and their memories will always bring a smile to your face. I guess for others, their passing is only slightly less painful than having them alive in your life was to begin with. The only time you smile thinking about them is when you remember them being bested by one of the first people.

Thank Heaven for all the tough little grandmothers through the ages, putting bullies in their place and protecting the morals of wayward granddaughters who dare to go bowling.

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