Grammie Dingman

My grandmother is the only person who regularly addresses me by both my first and middle name.

"Oh, Jeannine Renee," her voice rings out across the telephone line. She says it with the same enthusiasm I imagine she carried in her voice as she announced the details of my birth to her friends 37 years ago.

My birthday cards are addressed to Jeannine Renee, the envelops covered with glittery stickers and Easter Seals. This has always been so. It was that way for me as a child. It is that way for my children now. I remember how carefully I opened each card, taking great care not to rip an adorable bunny or kitten sticker in half. I've watched Alex delicately work around a sparkling jack o'lantern and Cate exclaim over the puppy stuck just where the point of the fold glues to the rest of the paper. I know their joy at finding a dollar or two taped inside. I have felt it too.

My grandmother celebrated her 87th (or is it 88th?) birthday today. How lucky I am to dial the phone and wish my grandmother a happy birthday. How joyful I am to hand the phone to my daughter so she can sing an off-key rendition of "Happy Birthday" to her great grandmother.

Memories of my grandmother are closely knit with Tang and Heavenly Hash and Magic Shell and PopTarts. Oh the delicacies that could be found in her tiny kitchen. Just a trip across the stone cold floor and it all awaited... Rocky Road, pistachio, Neapolitan. Always three ice creams in the freezer. Ginger ale, Coca-Cola. A kid's dream come true. Dinners of breaded pork chops and chipped beef gravy on toast. Pizza nights with tossed salad served in a black salad dish. Always with radishes. The color contrast has stayed always in my mind... the red of the radishes, the black of the bowl. Their sharp bite surprisingly pleasing.

If you felt ill at my grandmother's house, she would advise you to lay on the davenport. Davenport. Davenport. Why don't I use the word davenport? Above the davenport was a lighted picture box - some landscape or another. I liked to light it. Her sewing box was in the living room too. Standing on four legs, a white plastic quilted storage bin... it had a certain cool smell when you opened it, as if it were several degrees colder inside the box. Colorful threads, needles, a giant jar of buttons, the start of a few intricate crocheted doilies. Doilies. They were pinned to the arms of the chair and davenport, I imagine to protect them from wear. The covered the tops of dressers and tables. I grew up believing in doilies.

In the sitting room, a tiny knickknack shelf hung on the wall. Tiny dogs. Tiny cats. Tiny glass elephants. A small boy in a blue cap, kneeling in prayer. I stared at that shelf while my mother read me Mother Goose rhymes snuggled up on another davenport. Upstairs my grandmother would draw a "good hot bath" for me. She would fill it with bubbles from a pink Avon bottle. She'd toss in the bath toy - a Fisher Price version of Rub a Dub, Dub, Three Men in a Tub.

My brother and I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. We went visiting to our great grandmother, her mother. She had a silver Christmas tree and decorated her house with blue lights at Christmas. She collected deer. The little figurines covered every surface. I imagined my father sitting there as a boy, eating the fried baloney he spoke so longingly of when he spoke of his childhood. She lived in a duplex next to my great aunt and uncle. So we would visit them too. Their house was filled with cigarette smoke. A rubber chicken, a giant wasp's nest and an array of other treasures hung from their kitchen ceiling. They called me "Jeannie" and Jean-the-Bean" and gave me a lot of candy.

My grandmother worked for forty years at the Luxeray - sewing. For a long time, it was underwear and slips. She had a bag tucked away in her bedroom. You might find a pair that would fit, a pair labeled "Sunday" or something like that. The slips, my cousin and I used to play gypsy. We played for years in our long silky costumes. We played in my grandmother's neat, pink bedroom, rummaging through the drawers of her makeup table, sitting quietly by the heating vent in the floor. Staring down at the grownups in the living room. What were they watching? We could hear every word they said. We spent hours trying to catch a bit of gossip, some statement of interest to our eight-year-old ears. At night, my grandmother would tuck me into her bed.I got the pink and white bedroom and her bed. She slept in the guest room, or maybe on the davenport. "Good night, good night. Don't let the bedbugs bite," she'd say just as she turned out the lights.From her house, I could hear the train whistle from the tracks near the river.

My grandmother took my brother and me out to eat a lot. Hot roast beef sandwiches at the coffee shop. Golden calzones or shrimp in a basket on Friday nights at Lee's Drive-In. She brought us trinkets - stuff from the state fair. Stickers. Little figurines of cats. All the stuff that kids love. Now my kids get it too. Wind catchers that swirl in a metallic rainbow of colors. Stickers. Do-dads. They love it too.

My grandmother has survived breast cancer, colon cancer, skin cancer and a variety of other ailments, big and small. For as long as I can remember, she has handed things off to me with the statement, "When I am gone..." But the "when I am gone" has always been a practicality, never attached to the illness. When it comes to illness, she is a fighter with a positive attitude. I hope I have inherited that trait. She just came back from a trip to Florida to visit my cousin and her new baby. Her house is the neatest, most organized place I have ever visited. I know I didn't inherit that trait. But I admire it. Cards for birthdays, Valentine's Day, Easter, Christmas, Halloween all arrive a day or two before the holiday. I didn't inherit that trait either, but I hope I inherited the thoughtfulness.

My grandmother has been a constant in my life. She doesn't seem to change. She is the best person to call with a bit of exciting news. Her shout of joy is its own best reward. She makes soup and sends cards. She believes a good hot bath can cure most anything. She calls me on birthday and gives ziplock bags filled with exactly the same amount of change to both Alex and Cate.

So happy, happy birthday to a grandmother who has filled both my past and my present with love and joy.

I'm sorry my card is late.