auf Weidersehen

I recently returned from a six week stint out west visiting family. Although I was headed that way for a wedding I ended up going out early and staying for another reason. Omi passed away. My Grandmother, my only grandparent, has gone. Although she was 97, when my mother called to tell me she had died I realized that even though I new she was old, I never actually every imagined she would die. I had the oddest feeling that my cozy, petite spot in the universe that I had occupied the last 30 years didn't exist anymore. As if her passing had untied my little nook from it's anchor and it had just blown away. I am no longer a grand child, only a child. Now I must move up one rung of responsibility, readjust, find a new nook, and tap down the anchors I still have ever more firmly. But it is uncomfortable, and a bit lonely. Thankfully I have parents, siblings, cousins, Aunts and Uncles and my own little family all doing the same thing and helping each other along. So, for Omi, here are 97 things . . .

1. She loved me.
2. She was born in 1909.
3. She was German (with all the organization, determination, and loyalty that go with it).
4. She taught me how to play checkers.
5. She hated to loose, at anything (it's a gene that got passed on, a lot).
6. Although named Leona, her friends called her Lonnie.
7. She remembers school being let out to watch planes fly over the playground.
8. Her father was a member of the German military before coming to America.
9. As a father, he sometimes forgot he was in America and not the German military.
10. She attended graduate school at the University of Southern California.
11. Her middle name is Bertha, after her mother. Pronounced "Bear-ta" in German.
12. I never once heard her say anything but loving words about my Grandpa Wallace.
13. He died in 1971 and she was anxious to see him again.
14. Although, I didn't know him, she taught me who he was and what I had to live up to.
15. I called her Omi.
16. She was brilliant.
17. Her favorite apostle was John the Beloved.
18. She taught me how to make Danish dumpling soup.
19. She spoke German and kept in contact with many relatives from "the old country."
20. She grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah.
21. Her father was a cabinet maker.
22. She remembers watching the men with carts go down the street who had the job of picking up the horse droppings.
23. During the war she was often teased because she was German.
24. Walking to school with her brother other kids would shout at her, "Here come the Kaiser's kids, here come the Kaiser's kids!"
25. She remained a proud German.
26. She spent most of her adult life in Manti, Utah.
27. Everybody there knows her.
28. She collected Native American artifacts with my Grandfather.
29. She taught me how to hunt for arrow heads.
30. She made delicious little pigs-in-a-blanket with Vienna sausages. (I wonder if there are still some in her deep freeze I can pilfer?)
31. She won an award once for her canned peaches at the county fair.
32. She always dressed up her visitors in Indian garb from her basement and took photos.
33. You were never allowed to smile in the photos because, "the indians never smiled."
34. She married a cattle rancher.
35. She was a city girl and not well versed in cattle rancher lingo. While visiting some Wyoming women she told them her husband was a "cattle rustler." When they laughed she said seriously, "No, really, he's very good at it."
36. She always put the milk in a pitcher to put on the table, never out of the carton.
37. She loved to garden.
38. She has a little loft in her house above the stairs called "the crow's nest."
39. All the grandkids, and now great-grandkids loved to sleep there.
40. The crow's nest overlooks the twisting stairs and you can look down through the stairs and see all the way past the main floor to the basement.
41. The crow's nest provided a great vantage point from which to drop heavy pillows onto unsuspecting people exiting the stairs to the basement.
42. Although the kids thought this a riot, the parents . . . not so much.
43. She was a great painter.
44. She was a great reader.
45. She remembered everything.
46. She often made me a salad with fresh greens, tomatoes, carrots, and peas from her garden.
47. I have peas in my garden because of her.
48. I loved to celebrate 4th of July at her house.
49. She had a great house to run around and many trees to play hide-and-seek.
50. She abhored mice.
51. Due to a trick from my brother, she thought I was a mouse once and slammed the garage door on me. (It is still funny.)
52. She met President Taft once when she was very young but only remembers that he was so large, when he shook her hand and she looked up to introduce herself (as a proper little German girl) she couldn't see past his tummy to his face.
53. She loved to play Boggle.
54. She was very very good at Boggle.
55. I never won at this game with her; even when I had the word "pockets" (I got the singular and plural which in a twist of fate, she missed).
56. Her brother often came to visit her from Salt Lake to play Boggle with her.
57. He beat her once but after he left she looked up two of his words she thought suspicious. The next morning she called him first thing to announce that his words were not in the dictionary, therefore invalid, therefore . . . she won!
58. I'm telling you, she hates to loose.
59. My cousin Juliann beat her at a little memory game called Hoosker Doo when Juliann was a child and Omi never quite got over it.
60. Juliann has since lived up to the label of "beating Grandma" and graduated from medical school.
61. Omi was very proud.
62. She had Scandinavian type furniture in her house.
63. I remeber a little water bottle she liked to travel with that she had bought in Copenhagen.
64. I love the picture of her and her sisters-in-law, all of them in dirndls.
65. She had traveled to Europe many times.
66. Her family always loved to speak German when they were together.
67. My mother is Italian (with all the carefree joyessness that goes with it) and always tried very hard, but mostly unsuccessfully, to fit in with the Germans. Alas, it just isn't in her nature.
68. In an effort to help her remember auf Weidersehen, which she often confused with Edelweiss, Omi told her to say "our-feet-are-the-same" very fast when waving goodbye. It sounds pretty much like "auf Weidersehen."
69. Instead of helping, this turned into a supremely embarassing moment on my part while leaving on a date . . . but he married me anyway and that story is for another time.
70. She bought me my own set of towels once when I was in the hospital at age 7.
71. She drove a sports car.
72. She didn't like people to pass her up on the freeway.
73. She always waved goodbye with a white hankie until you were out of sight.
74. She served a mission for her church in the midwest states.
75. She also attended graduate school in Chicago and studied social work.
76. Up until about age 95 she helped my Uncle on the ranch and "drove truck."
77. She had three children that she adored and they worshipped her.
78. My father is her second son.
79. My son, William, bears the same name as her brother.
80. As does my son, Joseph.
81. Her only surviving sibling, John, died 5 weeks to the day after her.
82. He carried her picture around all day the day before he passed away.
83. I think he missed his Boggle partner.
84. She always had Sweet Williams and Alliums growing in her from yard.
85. I think I will plant some in mine.
86. She loved the Hopi Indian tribe.
87. She had many Navajo blanket hanging in her house.
88. Whenever I had to give a talk in church, I called her and she had volumes of information for me.
89. She loved the scriptures and was a Sunday School teacher many times.
90. Even after she couldn't see well enough to read she gave fabulous lessons, just out of her memory.
91. She had a beautiful wind chime hanging by the front door.
92. She had a funny little carved wooden man hanging up by the cows nest that did a little dance when you pulled on a string.
93. She always sent me Valentines.
94. She gave all the grandkids silver dollars when we visited.
95. While attending college in Provo, I often spent weekends with her in Manti.
96. I loved those times. She taught me many many things.
97. I love her.

auf Wiedersehen, Omi. Ich liebe Dich.