Grandma Grace

Grace Eva Otte

September 19, 1926 – January 8, 2012

She was born Grace Eva Carsh, and then she was Grace Froman, and then she was Grace Otte, but for all of us grand-kids, she was always Grandma Grace.

I have many wonderful memories of Grandma Grace. A train trip I took when I was a kid (the first on my own), down to Portland, to spend a few days with her, is a favorite. But whenever I think about her, my thoughts turn instantly to Christmas.

More than anything else, Grandma Grace taught me to love Christmas. It was her favorite time of year, and her infectious love of Christmas was passed on to her children, and then on to her grand-children.

And Christmas, to her, was all about family, and all about giving. As long as I can remember, whenever there was any gathering of my mother’s side of the family, Christmas would become an epic event. Opening presents, literally, would take hours. There would probably be a break for food in the middle of opening presents. That’s how long it would take. Which was the point. Presents were big or small, meaningful or ridiculous. Frequently ridiculous. It’s entirely possible that the best response that could be given, upon opening a present, would be incredulous laughter.

During the years that she and Ed (her second husband) were married, they did a lot of traveling together, staying at a lot of motels. And, being a child of the Depression, my grandmother would collect all of the soaps and shower caps, anything that was free, from the hotels they stayed at. And, every year, someone would get a wrapped box full of hotel soaps. We all knew it was coming. But you had to wait and find out who. The first year I brought Lisa home to meet everyone, Lisa got the box full of soaps. I couldn’t have been happier.

The appropriate response to any particularly ridiculous present would be, of course, to hide it somewhere in the house of whoever was hosting Christmas, with the goal of it being found a week or a month later. And the appropriate response, when you find a present that had been hidden at your house, would be to hold on to it until the next Christmas, and then, of course, wrap it and give it to someone else.

On years that we can’t spend Christmas with my mother, she ships huge boxes to us, full of presents. This year, she was fairly restrained—it was only 4 cartons full of presents. Almost always, there is a present, or two, or several, that have no immediate explanation, and require a phone call to my mother to find out just exactly what that thing is or why exactly she sent it. That is a legacy of my grandmother.

On years when Lisa and I don’t have much money, I’ll go to Goodwill and buy 15 or 20 things, and wrap them, and put them under the tree. Just so there’ll be a lot of presents to open. I’ll be lucky if one or two of them are actually ever used. The rest are donated back to Goodwill. I’ll be especially lucky if two or three are greeted with laughter or snorts of derision. That is a legacy of my grandmother.

Her health has been declining for the last fifteen years, but even so, up until a few years ago, every one of her children and grand-children would get a box full of small gifts every Christmas.

I found out on Christmas day that she only had a few days left to live. She would have hated that I was sad on Christmas.

I was able to speak to her by phone right after Christmas, and had a very nice talk with her. I am the only child or grand-child of hers that doesn’t live in Washington or Oregon, and so was the only one who wasn’t able to visit around Christmas-time this year. She told me several times how happy she was that I had called, and it made me feel good to know that I was able to give that to her.

She talked about all the good memories we have together, and all the good times we have shared, over so many years. She talked about a ping-pong table, in an old house. I don’t remember that, and wonder which house she meant. She asked about my grand-parents (the Reeder grand-parents) which surprised me.

And she talked, several times, about the cord that ties us all together.

She made it to Christmas again this year. Her 85^th Christmas. And then, two weeks later, she passed. She had just moved out of her house, into foster care. Two of her children had just come down, to help move her things out of her house. So there was family with her when she left.

She took care of everything, and left all the plans with Ed. She didn’t want anyone in the family to have to worry about what to do, or to make a fuss.

She’d been sick for the last fifteen plus years, and had been having a very difficult time. And I know that that pain is gone now, and I know that she’s in a better place. But I’m going to miss her. And I’m very sad that my son won’t get to meet her. But I’ll tell him about her. And I know I’ll be passing on lessons and values I learned from her.

And I’ll do my best to give him Christmases that Grandma Grace would have loved.