My Grandma, The Baddie

If I had an origin story, this would be it.

Welcome to another edition of Love, Peace, and Tacos, a weekly-ish newsletter where I share what I’m feeling, loving, and eating.

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May 7th marked the 1st anniversary of my Dad’s passing. Late in the evening on the 6th — just hours away from her 96th birthday, we lost my maternal grandma, Rose.

For months I’d been preparing myself for my Dad’s first anniversary. I had a plan for how I’d spend the day and who I’d reach out to if I needed support — but when I got the call that we’d lost Grandma, it all went out the window.

When I texted my best friend that night I said, “I feel like everything is falling apart and I’m grieving all the things, all at once.”

(My iPhone autocorrected this to “I’m grief gongs” which somehow feels even more appropriate)

Growing up, my friend had a trampoline in her backyard that we’d spend hours on during the summer. If you’ve ever played on a trampoline, you’ve probably experienced a double bounce. It happens when both people alternate their bounces and one person purposefully lands before the other, making the other person feel temporarily suspended in the air — or “double bounced.”

(According to science, the double bounce occurs because the energy from two jumpers’ masses gets transferred into one jumper. And yes, I had to watch Trampoline YouTube to figure out how to explain this concept!)

It’s disorienting and disarming.

That’s how my grief feels lately — like a double bounce. I’d just started to feel settled into one loss when another hit and shot me back into the stratosphere. That’s why it’s taken me a month to write this piece.

I’m fortunate that I had my Grandma for the first 43 years of my life, but still, this loss hurts so much.

This is one of a few photos of us together as an adult.

Looking through old photos and sharing stories about her life over the past few weeks, it hit me how much my Grandma has influenced me — from her esthetic choices to her love of traveling to warm places.

My Grandma Rosemarie — or Rose — embodied her name and loved the color pink. Everything around her had a rosy glow from her wardrobe and blush-toned bathroom to her pink golf club bag.

Also, she loved gold jewelry, Chanel Number 5, shopping, and places like Disneyland and Las Vegas. She was excellent at playing cards — something I did not inherit.

As a teenager, she was adventurous and temporarily moved to Toronto to work in the factories during WW2. In her time off, she loved to go to the big band dances at Sunnyside Pavillion — where 60+ years later, I’d attend house music parties and dance till the wee hours of the morning to the likes of Dimitri From Paris and Jellybean Benitez.

My grandmother in her teens.

My Grandma lived. She and my grandpa loved a good party. One of my favorite photos of her is this faux mugshot that was taken after a drunken night out with their friend, the town Sheriff.

After marrying my grandpa and raising my Mom and her two brothers, she and my grandpa traveled extensively throughout Mexico, the Caribbean, and the Southwest United States. Once they were retired, they’d take their massive motor home on the road and spend summer “down south,” in Palm Springs. The first time I visited Palm Springs, I felt their presence.

Grandma and Grandpa in Palms Springs (Joshua Tree?) Note, how her pink handbag matches her pink slides.

During this era, my grandma would religiously send postcards. My favorites featured impossibly bright sun, palm trees, and aquamarine water. I saved all these cards, organized with Virgo precision in a My Little Pony pencil box with a rainbow emblazoned across the lid. I vowed that one day, I would visit these faraway places like Maui and Mazatlan.

Rose, Salmon fishing in Alaska

My grandma had a separate closet for her resort wear (or “clothes for down south” as she’d call them) — something I aspire to (mine are currently tucked away in storage boxes above my wardrobe). Like many women of her era, she was always well put together — even when rocking her summer uniform, which consisted of crisp khaki shorts and a pastel-colored tank or golf shirt.

Whenever people ask me, “You’re always hanging out by pools, why is that?” I tell them about my lineage.

My grandparents were children of Polish and German-Ukrainian immigrants and settled in Kelowna, BC — where my Mom grew up. In the 1950’s, my grandpa started a successful business building swimming pools. It was one of the first pool businesses in BC. From the ’50s to the 1990s, he and my uncles built pools all over Western Canada.

The crown jewel: the pool in my Grandma’s backyard — a sprawling kidney-shaped pool with an extra deep end for diving — with a jaw-dropping view of vineyards and Lake Okanagan.

The view from Grandma’s

We drove to Kelowna every summer and stayed with my grandma for a few weeks. My sister and I would spend days swimming in my Grandma’s pool and playing with our cousins. Sometime, near the end of the afternoon, once we’d turned to prunes, my Grandma would bring us hot cocoa and cookies. The time I spent at her house is one of my favorite memories from childhood.

Grandma by her pool

I know my cousins — who lived close by and spent much more time with her than we did — feel the same way.

My Dad and sister, Melissa

I was a very anxious child and these summer vacations always provided a respite from my usual triggers (school, the self-imposed pressure to overachieve, and my parents’ arguments). I never wanted to leave and when it was time to head back to the coast, I’d bawl my eyes out (even as an adult!)

My grandma contained multitudes. She was a neat freak, said exactly what she was thinking (for better or worse), and could be stern — especially about messes. (She had light-colored wall-to-wall carpeting and seven grandchildren, so I get it!) But she was sweet, caring, and an excellent Grandma, who never once missed sending a birthday card. Although I talked to her on the phone regularly, my biggest regret is that I didn’t get to visit and hug her one last time.

Loss is strange, in that it brings certain truths into focus. Losing my grandma made me realize that I’ve spent my adult life visiting the places from those postcards and using every opportunity to recreate that feeling of sun-soaked comfort and joy I experienced in my grandma’s presence.

How it started vs. How it's Going

Current knowledge indicates that those assigned female at birth are born with their entire lifetime supply of eggs. Depending on whether you consider eggs the beginning of life, this means that at one point, you — or at least your genetic goop — existed within your maternal grandmother. Perhaps this is another reason why this loss feels so acute.

I wish I could tell my Grandma she’s my Rosebud — so much a part of my origin story. Despite being a baddie, my Grandma was modest and self-deprecating to a fault, so I know if I tried to explain this to her she’d shrug it off. Instead, I’ll say one of the last things we said to each other on the phone.

I miss you so much.

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