“The woman lying here is my grandmother”

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Here is the promised eulogy that I have written for Nanny:

 

The woman lying here is my grandmother, Maria Magdalena Forstmann Grant.  Though today is a very sad day, it is also a very happy day.  We are all heart-sick to see Nanny where she is right now, physically, but I tell you, I, for one, am at least partially joyful, for her spirit is not here anymore.  Her spirit has made its way to Heaven, where she is joining the many loved ones she has lost thoughout the years. 

My grandmother was a very strong-willed, determined lady.  Anyone who ever knew her for even five minutes could attest to that fact.  People were often shocked when they would visit her house and see her light up her beloved cigarettes, then utter a statement laced with her heavily accented profanity.  I always thought that was the funniest thing, even though it is making me cry right now.  If you asked Nanny a question about the weather, for example, you were just as apt to hear either how pretty it was or how “something that rhymes with spittin” ugly it was!  That was just her way, and I know her grandkids got a kick out of it. 

When she was a child, she had a lot of responsibility placed on her shoulders.  She, being the oldest child born of her mother, was expected to help out around the house and keep an eye on the younger children, and there was nooo shortage of younger children in that household!!!  She used to tell me stories  about those days, and her pride in her family was unmistakable, even then.  She relished the role of defender of children, if you will.  She always told me that when any of them were in trouble, they would yell, “Helenger!  Helenger!” and then she would swoop to the rescue. 

As she got older, her life was not easy.  I say this not to shame anyone, but to make a point about my grandmother’s character.  In 1946, when there was still quite a heavy stigma attached, she gave birth out of wedlock.  When her parents asked her if she was planning to give her baby, my Daddy, up for adoption, she replied,”’Rhymes with spit’  NO!!!!  I rather kill him and den myself!”  Of course, she said it in German; not in her accented English!  Having said that, her parents told her she had made the right choice, as she would not have been allowed back into their house had she given up her son.  I don’t know if that exactly compliments her parents, but I always admired the strength of character she displayed, even in the face of such a controversial situation.

My father was often left in the care of his grandparents as he grew up.  Nanny was busy working, to provide support for her only child.  She worked as a maid, a governess, and she worked in factories, as I understand it.  It could not have been easy to live with the lack of closeness with her own pride and joy, Hermann.

In the early 1960s, Nanny met a man named Johnnie.  I knew him as “Grandpa”.  Grandpa was an extraordinary man, in my view…in Nanny’s, too!   Grandpa had two children of his

own,  my Uncle Johnny and my Aunt Nenia.  One would not necessarily have expected him to accept my grandmother’s teenage son as part of the package, but he did, thus giving my father something that he had never known in his lifetime…a father. 

Let’s journey into the early 1980s.  Nanny and Grandpa had been married almost two decades when their youngest granddaughter, Kelly,  was born.  It was only a few short years later that Grandpa began to exhibit strange behaviors and memory problems.  In 1985, while Nanny was “back home” in Germany, visiting her brother Friedel for the last time, my grandfather took seriously ill with early-onset Alzheimer’s. 

Though this was a serious shock to all of us, I must say I have never witnessed a more loving, nurturing wife in my lifetime.  At first, she would bring him home from the VA hospital for weekend visits.  After a short time of this, Grandpa’s behavior was so different that it became impossible for him to stay home anymore.  He was never mean or bad in any way.  It’s just that he would do things like light toilet paper on the stove so that he could light a cigarette, then drop the toilet paper on the floor. 

After Grandpa became confined to the hospital, Nanny learned how to drive, at age 65, mind you, and earned her driver’s license, so she could go see her husband anytime she pleased.  She would drive the 100-mile round trip every day for the longest time to be with her precious “Schatz”, as she called him.  Many times, we went as a family…Nanny, Daddy, Mama, and us three kids…Mary Helen, Johnny, and me.  I don’t really remember this firthand, but Nanny would later tell me that there was one particular incident when my father was driving to the hospital, and something I did upset him and he yelled at me.  Well, Nanny once again demonstrated her unusual character by telling Daddy to “Shut up and leaf dem alone.  It’s not their fault John is sick!”   She was the only person I ever knew who would not hesitate for one second to set her son straight on something.  Anyone who knew Daddy would know that he inherited that same hard-headed determination and drive that Nanny had.  Oh, and he was always right! J

I remember one time, I was in the front seat of Nanny’s car, after Grandpa’s hospitalization.  We were going around Corsicana, probably to the store.  As she suddenly had to put on the brakes, she put her arm out in front of me.  I asked her why she did it…after all, I was wearing a seat belt.  She replied, “Becauss  I am carrying precious cargo!”

I miss those days, and I wish we could have them back, but we can’t, so they have to live on in our memories, and I am determined to keep them alive in as many peoples’ memories as I can. 

Her trials were not yet over.  On December 20,1989, her world came tumbling down.  That was the day all our lives changed.  Daddy died that day.  It was a tremendous impact on us all, to say the very least, but I will never forget how awful it was to see the total destruction of my own grandparent.  Just a little over three years later, on February 9, 1993, we lost Grandpa.  After this, my grandmother changed dramatically. 

She was angry.  She was hurt.  She was emotionally shredded.  For the next six years, life was not pleasant for her or for our family.  I hate to mention this, because my goal here is to remember the good things, not the bad.  God had his hand on us, though.  He kept us all afloat as we dealt the best we could with our losses.  For Nanny, in particular, they extended to the deaths of most of her siblings, as well. 

Everything took such a wonderful, happy turn for Nanny in July of 1999.  The arrival of my sister’s first child, her son, Alex, brought Nanny a little bit back to life.  One year and two weeks later, there was my sister’s second child, her daughter, Juli.  Nanny and Grandpa wound up having many great-grandchildren, but, living quite a distance from Nenia’s or Johnny’s grandchildren, she was never as involved in their lives as she would become in Alex’s and Juli’s lives.  Any time Nanny went anywhere, she carried a miniature photo album, full of pictures of “her babies”.  At the slightest provocation, she would pull that album out and show them off to anyone who would look.  When people would show their pictures, she made no bones about how much MORE special HER babies were than theirs, in a humorous sort of way.  She would tell them something like, “Ja, I know we all denk our great-grandkids are the prettiest and the best, but I know mine really are!” 

Sometime in the early 2000s, Nanny herself fell victim to Alzheimer’s Disease.  She was already close to, if not past, the age of 80.  Because of her stubbornness, she would never consent to see a doctor, so it was difficult to obtain an official diagnosis of anything.  Finally, it became clear that she could no longer function on her own, in her own home.  My sister, Mary Helen, sought guardianship, and she took the most wonderful care of our grandmother. 

Very early in Nanny’s stay with Mary Helen, we found out that the Forstmann Family Curse had not, indeed, passed her by, as I had always naively assumed it would.  Nanny was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, with virtually no options to prolong her life.

I like to think that if she had realized what was happening to her, she would have dealt with it in her own unique way, saying something like, &ldquo