Her name was Romey. Not her real name. Romey was her nickname, the name on her checks. Where she was from you could use your nickname in your checkbook.
She carried a leather purse, hard leather tooled with elaborate scenes. A man on a horse or flowers set among borders. I think she had more than one, they came from Mexico, and when she died I purposely arrived a day late to the divvying out of her belongings. Nothing she had left could make up for what I lost, but when I saw the purse unclaimed I asked for it.
I’m named after her. People ask me all the time where I got my name. Mom just yesterday told someone that Grandma had wanted Mom to name one of her children after Grandma. Mom waited until she ran out of kids, and knowing I was the last chance to fulfill Grandma’s request, Mom gave me the name.
We all thought it was an ugly name when I was young, a name similar to other old lady names—Velma, Erma, Mona, Ramona—except worse because no one had heard of it. Now we know it’s a beautiful name.
I got her curly hair, too. Mom always says I must have got my hair from Grandma. And her sometimes bad temper. And her love of gossip.
She loved reading National Enquirer. The intrigue of alien babies born to earthling mothers. She insisted that the funny little redhead who showed up in deviled ham commercials and talked with a lisp was actually an old lady midget. She’d read it in the National Enquirer.
She taught us to make butter and play Black Jack, and it dawns on me that she was a pioneer woman, living an isolated life on a ranch with her kids and chores and when she got old, her soap operas and plants and apricot poodle named Dukie.
She taught us to all turn the faces of Abraham Lincoln on our penny bets to face the dealer, so that Lincoln would send the evil eye and prevent any possible stroke of luck the dealer might have. It worked; Grandma always won at Black Jack.
She had the bluest eyes, they got lighter the older she got. People ask me how I birthed a daughter with green-blue eyes when my own and Jim’s are brown. I carry Grandma’s blue eyes in a recessive gene, I tell them. Her curly brown hair, her smooth olive skin, her fiery temper, her name, and the hidden jewel of her light blue eyes.
She cooked, she knitted, she sewed quilts from old dresses. I have a blanket that covers the fashion trends of her day: paisley prints and flowers and Day-glo orange, pink, and yellow.
I still regret the time Tina and I bugged her for days asking if she’d leave us this thing or that thing when she died. We were young, 13 and 14, or 12 and 13, and we got on a kick, loving all of Grandma’s ranch house knick-knacks. She was annoyed with us, and still we persisted, pointing to a painting of a horse or an ashtray or a wooden bowl. Can I have that one, Grandma? How ’bout that one? And that one?
Later Grandma gave me a wool blanket that Grandpa had brought her from Mexico. I was in my 20s. I wonder if she remembered the time we wanted to take her with us in bits and pieces thinking we could hold on to her forever.
-related to Topic post: WRITING TOPIC — GRANDMOTHERS
Ybonesy – it’s neat that you are named after your grandmother? This is a loving remembrance.
How true! – “I wonder if she remembered the time we wanted to take her with us in bits and pieces thinking we could hold on to her forever.” This would make a wonderful first line in a short story about her. This is a terrific bit of writing! G
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ybonesy, some really great details in this practice. And you seem really grounded in it — there is a peacefulness about it. And that last paragraph, really nice. Where is the blanket now?
I also wish I could meet your grandmother. I like that you are named after her. Are there names in your family tree that keep getting passed down through time? I was noticing the names in ours today. Some that repeat — Amelia, Cassandra, Elizabeth, Ernest, Jack, Nancy, Elise, William, Wesley, Henry, Thomas, George, Louis. All moving down over 400 years or so. It’s so cool.
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yb..this was very touching. I think your name is beautiful. I love my Grandmother very much..but I confess I am so glad that they did not name me Bessie. 🙂
I have mentioned her on here from time to time. She will be 102 in June, and I may not be home from France in time to go to her party. Her mind is slowly leaving us, and she told me a couple of months ago that her Father came for her in the night and she firmly told him “no not yet..I am not ready to go.” She was very much a Daddy’s girl. Now. some in our family think it was just a dream, but I believe he came for her, and is lovingly waiting until she is ready. Thus, I think she preparing to leave us.
Thank you for sharing your memories and your heart.
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Well God Bless Bessie first of all. I believe her too gypsy-heart.
yb, her/your name reminds me of Roma, the name the gypsies called themselves…at least in the Victorian times. Is there any correlation? Was she part gypsy. She definitely had a free spirit. I love the gambling part and the old lady midget commercial! I can just see the twinkle in your Grandma’s eyes.
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Yb – I’ve always love your name and never ever thought of it in terms of Velma, ZELDA (ha), etc. I always thought it was exotic and you always fit your name perfectly. I remember meeting your grandma and grandpa once and how you used to say that they fought like cats and dogs but still could never live apart. They were pretty cool old people who were so reminiscent of pioneer days. I liked them.
That’s pretty cool about gypsy-heart’s grandmother seeing her dad and telling him he’s not ready. I believe that truly happened. It’s happened to me once when a friend of ours died and a couple days later he came to me in a dream and told me to come with him but I couldn’t and had to tell him I wasn’t ready yet. That was the last time I dreamt about him.
Cool writing practice Yb and QM. N
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yb, I’ve read both yours & QM’s pratices & must say that I want to comment on both. Being fortunate to know your given name about 2 years ago, I must say that I thought it was one of the the most beautiful names I have ever heard. Knowing now that you were named after your Grandmother makes it even more special. Family names handed down can somehow seem almost ancient in this day, but I feel they are important. One of my bothers children is named after my Grandmother Elizabeth.
Both you & QM have provided us with one of the best writing practices I’ve read for awhile.
Kudos to memories!!!! D
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[…] to posts PRACTICE: My Grandmother – 15min and WRITING TOPIC — […]
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Thanks for the comments, diddy, Neecy, QM, Heather, Suz, and G.
Ah, Suz, what a blessing to still have your grandmother. Mine died at age 83. She’d be 105 now.
I also tend to believe that your grandmother, Bessie, wasn’t having a dream. I wonder what she’s waiting for. Have you ever done a painting of her?
Neece, I remember your grandmother. We went to visit her one Christmas, I think, in Santa Fe. She was so cute. White hair, did she wear it pulled back in a bun? I hope I’m remembering correctly. Oh, I just thought of something…”pe-o-ple”. HA! Jim and I still say that all the time. 8)
Hey, QM, I still have the blanket. It’s in our chest with other keepsake blankets. It’s a deep maroon color. She also gave me a beret of the same color. Funny, I just remembered that.
So many of our family names are Spanish and long and in some cases really odd, and I think it was hard to keep giving those names to kids as the years went by. I got Grandma’s, and some of my siblings were named after my mom’s siblings. But I looked at all the names of great grandmothers to consider for naming my daughters. One great grandmother had the name Elena, and I liked that name, but the others were pretty wild. That’s often the case with old Spanish names—Guadalupita, Inocencia, Tomasita, Eulogia (Neecy will recognize that one), etc.
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Neecy, thanks. And I believe that happens, too, that we receive visits from those loved ones close to us who have passed to the other side. It’s definitely happened to me, too. Along with my Grandmother Ada, I also had a friend visit me after she died from pancreatic cancer a few years ago. In all these cases, I was comforted by their presence, not at all scared.
diddy, thanks. I know you were close to your grandmother, too. And now you are a grandmother! You are making memories for your grandson.
ybonesy, I think those Spanish names are beautiful. I wonder if they could be passed on as middle names in time. I know it can sometimes be hard to receive family names though, especially when kids are younger. I remember my siblings sometimes balking at their family names when they were younger. I bet now they are glad they have them though.
Interesting about the beret. I wonder where it came from.
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QM, was your family like ours in that some of the kids were named for relatives and some got the more modern names of the day? We laugh about names in our family a lot because Mom wanted to name my oldest sister something like Wanda Lee. I think that’s right. And I think she came up with that name on her own; in other words, it wasn’t a family name. My oldest sister always says how happy she is that she got named for my mom’s oldest brother instead.
My father’s mother’s name is Magdalena. Again, a sort of big formal name. I guess you could shorten it to Maggie. Mom’s cousin was Maggie. She was probably a Magdalena.
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YB – along with Eulogia, who was named after her grandmother, my great grandfathers’ names were Incarnacion and Concepcion named after bible concepts i.e. the incarnation of Christ, the immaculant conception etc. They named children after bible concepts, I hear, in the hispanic culture back in those days. These names were never reused by subsequent generations in my family. I guess they were too old fashioned (except Eulogia lasted until the 1930’s.) N
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This had me chuckling earlier tonight when I read it. I was wondering how one would make a nickname out of Incarnacion. I know some women named Concepcion…one who was the sister of my uncle Isaac. They called her Connie, I think.
Carne, oye. Ven aqui. Te quiero dar un beso. 8)
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Oh, also, can you imagine how most people would pronounce Incarnacion? Incarnation (like the milk), could you pass me the salt? What in tarnation, Incarnation, are you up to?
When we were thinking of names for children, I loved the boy names Rafael, Gabriel, and Adrian, but only in the Spanish pronunciation, which is so different from how they sound in English. I love it when I hear a kid from a Spanish-speaking family correct others when they mispronounce his or her name. Tells me that that family honors their roots.
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LOL Incarnation/tarnation! Actually I think that my Great Grandfather’s (Concepcion) nick name was Chinito – not sure of the spelling or how Chinito came from Concepcion. Rio Chinito which runs through his orchards in Chimayo was named for him which I never new until last summer when my mother and I went up there.
I love the names Gabriel and Damien too (but both with the spanish pronunciation.)
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