No Grandma Was Better

The Best Superbowl Shuffler To Ever Live
Lorraine Claire Brettman
1924-2006

The best things I remember about my Grandma are hard to quantify. Almost every memory I have of her is a good memory. A fun memory. A loving memory. But I'll leave it to a top 10 list for now.

10. No grandma went skinny dipping more at her cottage on the lake. And no one took tripping over a tree root, falling flat on her face, and losing her towel better than Gram. And she never even dropped the soap.

9. No grandma ever sang "A Bushel and a Peck" better. I can't remember all the words, but I can still hear her singing it.

8. No grandma had better candy dishes. Gummy bears and jolly ranchers for us, licorice snaps and licorice buttons for her. Thank goodness she knew the difference between "grandma candy" and "kid candy".

7. No grandma paid better for such mundane tasks as raking the leaves, picking up life jackets, sweeping a sidewalk, or picking up sticks in the yard. She was paying 2006 money in 1986. And she knew it and enjoyed it.

6. No grandma enjoyed dirty jokes as much as she did. Or had more jokes of her own about her "ample bossoms". Dinner was always a riot, especially if you added a glass or two of wine into the mix.

5. No grandma would tell you that buying Breyer Model horses was a "good investment" as much as my grandma would. She loved me and my horse obsession that much. She appreciated the painstaking process of weighing the purchase of a appaloosa war pony against the buckskin mustang stallion. And no matter which one I chose, she agreed that it was the best choice.

4. No grandma ever attended more horse shows wearing polyester black pants in 90 degree heat for hours on end, only to see her only granddaughter at the time ride in one 10 minute class. Nor did any complain less when a bee flew up said black polyester horseshow attending pantleg and stung her.

3. No grandma made Christmas more fun or Birthdays more fun. We got more presents from Grandma than all other family members combined, and they were always BIG. Not expensive, but you knew which packages were from Grandma. When everyone else tried to fit stuff in a box, Gram bought the gifts that were impossible to wrap. She wrapped them anyway, and with gusto.

2. No grandma loved us more. From the hugs she gave us where you could disappear in her cleavage, to the bags of candy when she came to visit, to the weeks spent at the cottage during the summer with us, she was overflowing with love for her grandkids. And we loved her back.

1. No grandma ever Superbowl Shuffled the way my Gram could. And no one ever will again.

Godspeed, Gram. I hope your baking on a beach in Hawaii, getting fanned by a sun-bronzed surfer and drinking lots of Mai Tais, grooving on to Don Ho singing "Tiny Bubbles". You will be loved and missed forever.