Today is my Grandma’s birthday. She would have been 94. She passed away two years ago this August, mid-Covid-lockdown. For her service, Devo and I crafted a video journey for my family of her remarkable, adventurous life from videos, photos, recordings, and letters—Ruby’s life in her own words. You can watch it here, if you’d like. It’s long but it’s really good and I’m very proud of it. The last few minutes are probably my favorite. And I just love that the final slide, the last letter from her, she signs it but somehow leaves a comma after her name, as though the story isn’t quite finished. 

Ruby,

What follows is what I wrote for my personal tribute—it’s at 1:28:50 in the video. The “dirge” is in the podcast section of this post. I still cry for her several times a week. It means a lot to me to share her with you.  ❤️  «red, for Ruby

Grandma

This is very hard for me to talk about. 

Grandma was there the day I was born. I have had her for my whole life. Almost 40 years. I was hoping for more. For me it was my mom, and Grandma, and Grandpa. They were my home. We lived with or near Grandma and Grandpa for most of my childhood. I was three when we moved away to Samoa and even though I was so little, I remember crying for Grandma and Grandpa because I missed them so much.

Grandma taught me all the most important things—how to read, how to wring out a dishcloth, how to make balanced meals the way grandpa Kahler has taught her—something about diabetics and 3 percents, but really it was just orange and green vegetables plus a carbohydrate and a protein. And probably a dish of black olives or a glass of V8 with ice in it and Grandma, Grandpa and I would sit around the table and swirl and clink our ice cubes. She taught me how to make nut butter and bread, and keep a house clean and organized, and how to always question the people in charge, and how to crochet, knit, cross stitch, and sew and make quilts. I can’t tell you how many times she unknotted the messes I made and rethreaded the machine. She loved to watch M*A*S*H while she did the ironing—she taught me how to iron using Grandpa’s cloth handkerchiefs. I can still smell them with the steam from the iron. 

I spent summers driving up and down the west coast with Grandma and Grandpa, visiting all the relatives and their old friends—they’d trust me to tetris all the luggage into the car and we made sandwiches from ingredients Grandma packed in a cooler or we stopped at Burger King for chicken sandwiches because that was my favorite. I’d sit in the back and read, or sit between them on the bench seat in front, and we’d play car games or Grandpa would get on his ham radio, or grandma would identify the crops or wildflowers or geology we were passing, or she’d tell me what was in the big trucks we passed based on the numbers on those triangular signs because she knew all the codes. We visited all the family cemeteries and she told me all the stories about the people I come from.

She taught me to love theology—her approach seemed to be a perpetual glee in sticking it to the man—because God is always bigger and more loving than we think. She liked being a heretic. I got that from her. Thinking back, she didn’t have much of an escapist theology—she didn’t talk a lot about the great hope of a blissful trouble-free heaven. I wonder if she thought that would be a little boring—I wish I’d asked her that. She was more interested in “occupy till I come” and feeding and educating and clothing and caring for the people that God so loves. 

I was one of the people that she loved. Everyone should be so lucky. 

When I was two, she and I were in the accident and her legs were crushed and she was knocked unconscious. I was in the backseat. When she came to, I don’t know when—maybe after they used the jaws of life to get her out?—her first words were, Where’s my baby, where’s my baby? That’s how she always told the story and they way she said it—where’s my baby, where’s my baby?—you usually had to read between the lines to know what Grandma was feeling—but the way she always said it when she retold the story—where’s my baby, where’s my baby. You were my baby, she’d tell me.

Usually connected to the story about how when I was little I’d sleep in their bed at night and always end up laying across their pillows and kicking them in the head. I have a distinct early memory of Grandma and Grandpa coming into my darkened room at night all concerned. Grandma had a big spoon with honey and lemon juice she’d squeezed out of the plastic lemon. I must have had a cough. 

Grandma loved all of us in a way that is very rare—she managed to think all of us are endlessly interesting and fascinating. I didn’t ever hear her speak negatively about a single person in the family. It wasn’t that she was blind to our faults or choices or struggles, it was more like, well first, like she had faith that we would figure things out. But even more, she could see through to what is most important—that we are all of us worthy of her interest, worthy of her fascination, worthy of her heretical all-accepting love. She loved us. Everyone should be so lucky to have someone like Grandma in their lives. We may have lost this voice, she’s not around anymore to think we’re awesome, but we have had it and we are so lucky.

If she were alive, I’d apologize for singing a slow song for her—she never liked dirges. That’s what she’d call any church song that went too slow for her. But I know she’d overlook it and think it was very well done and be proud of me anyways. 

There are two stories that we’re telling here today. One is her story. And one is the story of what she means to us. 

So, to sum up —she’s my Grandma —she is a part of me at the deepest level— and I’ll miss her and cry for her for the rest of my life. 

Get full access to homing at homing.substack.com/subscribe