Grandpa and me (clothes)

[mrissa]

Today Mom and Grandma are going to clean out Grandpa's closet. It's such a silly thing, but I have a really happy memory of the last time Grandpa's closet got cleaned.

I was in high school, probably 15. Grandma had been onto him and onto him about it, and she told us he did not want to let go of anything. "It's still perfectly good!" he protested. "She wants me to get rid of perfectly good clothes." Grandma was, she told us, at her wits' end. Well, we had nothing else on the agenda for that night, so after dinner, we all trooped upstairs, Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa and Booboo the dog and me, to clean out Grandpa's closet.

It was a big closet. They had three bedrooms in that house, one of them a walk-in, and only two of them living there. So there was plenty of room to store things and not have to get rid of them for room for more. There were polyester one-piece jumpsuits. There were shirts with lapels wider than my waist. There were cowboy shirts with pearl buttons. He had things I had not only never imagined my grandpa wearing, I had never imagined anybody wearing them, but there they were in their dacron glories. Mom had fine gradations of response from, "When did you last wear that, Daddy? Put it on and let me see," to, "Pop, I made that; I know how old it is!" to, "Oh, Father, no!" Dad and I just laughed until we hurt.

Grandpa came around again to the same line: "It's still perfectly good!" And we realized what the problem was, and Momma stifled her giggles. "Dad, Mom doesn't want you to throw these things out," she said. "She wants you to give them to charity. You're not using them, and they are still perfectly good--or at least nearly as good as they ever were--and maybe someone else will get some use out of them. Probably someone poorer than you."

After that, Grandpa was perfectly content to clean out the things he hadn't worn in awhile--especially when he saw that "unused/unusable" was a lot more the criterion than "old." It was the principle of the thing.

We are sort of limping along around here, trying to take good care of ourselves and each other. Tonight the dinner plan is mango quesadillas, sliced avocado, fresh strawberries. Also I made lussekatter this morning. The dark days aren't over for us, just as they aren't on Santa Lucia Day, but letting a little saffron-scented light into the house is no bad thing.

Also I have now written three sentences of fiction today, the first since Grandpa died. Maybe there will be more later tonight. Maybe not. But we're dealing with what we can and what we have to.

Comments

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

My grandpa was much the same way, though the apartment hadn't nearly as much closet space. He had kept all his narrow ties and narrow-lapel sports jackets as the fashions called for wider and wider ones. Grandma finally got fed up and tossed them all in a charity bin, so he had to get new clothes that were more current. By the time we were living with my grandparents it was the early 80s and lapels and ties were narrow again, and Grandma told us that often, and she looked rueful when she told us because he was holding on to his wide ties the way he'd clung to the narrow ones.

[redbird]

I like that: "You're not using them, and they are still perfectly good--or at least nearly as good as they ever were."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

As with many Minnesotans, Mom can make the war between tact and honesty pretty funny.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

That really is beautifully said. My hat is off to your mom.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Very nicely done indeed!

[framefolly.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing another moving memory -- the way you are celebrating your love through your gift with words is really inspiring. My favorite detail is actually "Booboo the dog" -- I wonder what his take on the outfits was!

I was once in a school production of The Fantasticks -- I played one of the fathers. We went to a goodwill store, I think, to get the "old man of another era" clothes. If clothes could speak!

smiles

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

"There were shirts with lapels wider than my waist."

Smiles.

Just a fly by but what is lussekatter? Chris did a big Hammmama dinner here tonight, the night's feeling spring but we've still got enough of a chill tonight that a big ham dinner works out, and that feels good too. I cleaned out the back yard for a couple of hours (much hot showering was had after.) And now, Chris is snorring bear snores from the den, and Benni is off at the SUNY library cramming for an Analysis test tomorrow. No idea how you do that after consuming that quantity of ham (and sides) We'll see.

Three is good. New story? And mmm.. strawberries.

Lv, A

Re: smiles

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Lussekatter are Swedish saffron buns, traditionally made for Santa Lucia Day. If you go back to the last several years of December 13 entries, I talk about them there; I'm sorry I don't have the energy to link-gather right now.

Not a new story. One I've been picking at for awhile. I have some like that, that just fall together bit by bit over the months.

[tewok.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing your grandfather with us through your stories. I am appreciating the relationship you had with him, and I would have loved to have had that close relationship with one of my grandparents.

I have a suggestion and I hope it isn't out of place or too forward of me. These reminiscences might be appreciated by all your family. They might really enjoy having these copies of these stories. Printed on regular printer paper and inexpensive binding at Staples or Kinko's or somewhere, and your family can share these lovely stories.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If I think of that right now I won't be able to write another word, because it will become a Permanent Thing To Honor Grandpa rather than a passing thing I am doing as I think of little bits.

That doesn't mean it was wrong of you to suggest it. Just means I am not up for processing the suggestion right now.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

WONDERFUL memory.

Jan and I just made this discovery with Arie and Éiden's toys. When we used the phrase "donate" instead of "throw out," they got a lot more enthusiastic. They just didn't want the essential usefulness and importance of their toys to be ignored.

[talimena.livejournal.com]

That's a really sweet story. I can so easily picture the switch from "throwing my stuff away" to "allowing other people, who have more need, access to this".