Granny's Fire

After sledding with the kids today, they begged for a fire to warm their toes. Chris loaded up the fireplace with wood, and we all enjoyed the serenity that only a fire can bring. Well, we enjoyed a few precious minutes of serenity before the "he's touching me!" arguments began. As I sit in front of the fireplace now, I'm transported back to my childhood and our weekend ventures to Granny's house.

My Granny (my Mom's Mother's Mom) was a 4 time world champion bowler in her youth. When I knew her, Sally Twyford was simply "Granny" to my sister, Carrie, and me. She lived in a cabin at the top of a hill on Clay Lick Road in Brown County, Indiana. She wore her white hair in long braids and killed rattlesnakes with her shotgun. She taught Carrie and me how to play poker and saved all of her spare change in a giant Mason jar for us to divide when we came to visit. We didn't have much as children; our Dad was MIA, and our Mom worked three jobs to keep food on the table. But we had our weekend trips to Granny's. Those were the highlight of our childhood. Granny wasn't a warm, loving, grandmotherly type. She cursed and drank with the best of them. She was fearless and wouldn't put up with sass from any of us--including my Mom. She had a crochety old dog, Rusty, that would bite us if we came too close. And we all knew that Granny loved Rusty more than any of the rest of us. But when I was at Granny's house, I felt safe. Granny didn't like everyone, but she liked us. I never questioned this gift; I just took it and held it tightly for fear I might someday lose it.

When we visited Brown County, we hiked through the woods during the day. We tied red bandannas around our heads to keep the ticks out of our hair. Granny would bring her walking stick, and I knew there wasn't a rattlesnake that would dare show it's scaly face. We spent afternoons skipping stones at Zack's Lake, and in the evenings, we would sit on the floor while Granny played her guitar and sang, "Please, Mr. Conductor." She didn't have a particularly good singing voice, but I loved to hear her sing, anyway. She sang "Two Little Babes" which always made me cry.

After a round of poker in the evening, Carrie and I would settle downstairs in our sleeping bags in front of the fire. It would pop and crackle and dance in the darkness, and although I was always a little afraid in the basement, I loved that fire more than anything. Mom and Granny would stoke it throughout the night so it wouldn't burn out, and Carrie and I awoke in the mornings with that campfire smell in our clothes and our hair.

I was eight when Granny died. She was the first person I had ever known and loved who passed away. Cancer ravaged her body quickly and although her death came fast, it was laden with pain and suffering. I prayed for Granny with all my heart. I was afraid she wouldn't get into heaven because she drank, cursed, gambled, and wasn't always nice to our cousins. At her funeral, I couldn't stop touching her. Her body was so cold; her face so still. My cousin, Erin, and I were fascinated by the obvious fact that her nose hairs had been removed. We giggled about it in the funeral parlor, and I was sure that a mortal sin had stained my soul forever. What good Catholic girl laughed at her dead Grandmother's missing nose hairs? When we lost Granny, I lost a part of my childhood. Our weekends seemed long and lonely without our road trip in the blue Chevette. When I went to CYO camp down the street from Granny's house, it felt lonely and strange.

I sing Granny's songs to my children now, but I change the words so they're not quite so disturbing. The two little babes don't die in the woods in my rendition. The train conductor's young passenger's mother isn't dying either; she's simply waiting for her son to arrive for a visit. My watered-down versions of Granny's songs make my kids laugh and roll their eyes. They would have loved their Granny. They would have probably been a bit afraid of her, too. They would have laughed when she passed gas and didn't know it because her hearing was gone. They would have been scared to sleep in the basement, but they would have loved the fire. It is the one piece of Granny we can all share.