Leftover Memories
by Ted Walker

Pancakes. It was all about the pancakes. I would wake up, smell the delicious aroma, and jump out of bed, making my way from the guest room to the kitchen. Then I would and park myself at the kitchen table to wait, my fingernails making grooves in the soft wood. Grandma would see me and laugh at how I wasn't even dressed yet. But she would serve me first, the golden brown cakes gleaming slightly from frying pan oil. I loved my Grandma. She would smoke out the kitchen window, and happily greet everyone as they came into the kitchen, laughing and joking.

She lived in a farm house in Easton, a town on Maryland's eastern shore, where I suppose she must have lived her whole life. I really know very little about her, once I gather my memories. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't ask anyone else what they remember about her as I try to piece everything together. I know she was college educated, but that she spent most of her life in the home making things nice for Grandpa.

Easter was one of the best times for us grand kids to visit her. After receiving massive amounts of Easter basket goodies, Grandma would boil dozens of eggs, and we would painstakingly decorate them. I remember my “dinosaur eggs” would always have large, colored spots of crayon, while my sister and Mom used stripes and zigzag patterns. The dining room table would be covered in newspaper and laden with all sorts of dyes, crayons and wire egg dippers. Grandma, more a reassuring presence than a participant, would lean over to place bowl after bowl of finished eggs down for us all to reach. I like to think she got a great deal of satisfaction seeing us decorate the eggs and show them her before we rushed out to hide them.

The expanse in front of my Grandma's house bordered a major highway. Drivers sped past at 65 miles an hour between the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and the Atlantic Ocean. At the edge of this road, my sister and I (and my brother, once he got old enough) would go back and forth across the great lawn and by the old pine trees and hide the eggs as best we could. I even buried some of them in the ground (they were dinosaur eggs, after all) or put them in old birds' nests. My sister would use the beds of plants or behind rocks as her favorite spots. And then we would run around like maniacs – feet from the deadly highway – and grab as many eggs as we could find, crushing many of our prizes in the process.

Once we had gathered the eggs, my memories get a bit hazy at what we would do with them. I don't think anybody wanted to eat that many eggs, but as I write this I realize now where our egg salad at lunch had to have come from. Since it was Sunday, this lunch would be the last meal at Grandma's for some time. I think I remember knowing somehow that Grandma was sad to see us go, even at a young age. I knew that once we were gone, the house would return to silence except for the sounds of the radio or television. She wasn't a sentimental woman, but she was glad to have us, glad to have someone to talk to. While Grandma was a garrulous woman, Grandpa was a quiet man, and ten years her elder; it always seemed that Grandma was the one holding up any conversations they had, and I wonder if when we left they had much to talk about.

My Mom actually never spoke much about Grandma, or if she did, I was probably reading a book or playing a video game at the time. I remember some of the stories: she told us about growing up in Easton, high school, how she and her brothers were as kids. I saw the toys Mom and her brothers had played with in the attic along with journals and posters, but the details of how Grandma had raised her children eluded me. I remember it being mentioned that if Mom misbehaved as a child, she would sometimes be spanked or smacked, which always upset me. Mom was growing up in the sixties, and Grandma was from the Greatest Generation that had fought World War II, so the classical generational disconnect was bound to occur. I think Mom may have felt hurt or angry at Grandma, but as time wore on, I think she let a lot of it go and enjoyed spending time with Grandma as friends as well as mother and daughter.

Perhaps my Mom saw the distance in communication between her mother and her father and felt sorry for Grandma. I sometimes think she secretly vowed to have a marriage with someone she could really communicate with. And I believe she found a very good companion in my father, except for the fact that he was gay. When she divorced him when I was four, I think she lost her best friend and her comrade-in-arms. Sometimes I fear she is tragically reliving the same disconnect between her mother and her father with her husband Rob, but again, this is all in my mind. I don't really know these stories other than a few quarter-remembered memories, and my interpretation of events is certainly biased. In fact, I think that I am the one with inner tragedies and losses; they have simply taken the form of my mother and grandmother.

Thanksgiving was usually a big affair for the Royer family. Like Christmas, it provided an excuse for us to gather in Easton for a mini-reunion. My aunts and uncles would be there, as well as my cousins, who were younger than my sister or I. Having the whole family gathered was actually one of my favorite things, and all the grandchildren would go wild. The upstairs attic was a veritable toy chest, and we would play stupidly dangerous games such as “alligator pit” while the adults sat around downstairs watching football. When we grew tired of this, my cousins Martin and Daniel would play all sorts of nerdy board games with me. All the while, Grandma would be quietly tending to things, cooking, baking, setting the table. She was a farm woman, after all, and she was doing what she did best. She went on her shift when we were there, working overtime to make everyone at ease, to nurture and feed us.

I remember how one year – I was probably ten or eleven – Christmas was fast approaching, and I had asked for a remote-controlled car (because Aaron Butler had one). I kept begging my Mom with the request until she finally hinted that Grandma had gotten me one. This eventually quieted me down, but I still drove the wireless vehicle over and over again in my mind, fantasizing how I would launch it off ramps and use it to deliver secret messages to my friends.

When Christmas morning dawned, and the plastic Santa Claus was fixed on the roof with nails, and the antique ornaments hung on the tree, I was ready for my present. Grandma was so proud to give me the gold-wrapped box, and I was filled with expectation. She smiled down at me as I unwrapped it. Beneath the paper was a remote controlled car! I was so happy, and hugged and thanked her. I began to remove the packing, and froze. I had made a disturbing discovery: “remote control” only meant a few feet; the car had a thick black wire connecting it to the control mechanism. I suddenly was so angry at my Grandmother that I threw the worst, most undignified tantrum that I have ever thrown. I just knew that she had gotten me a cheap one from the dollar store, and was so frustrated after all that waiting. My Mom was so embarrassed that she dragged me from the room, and as cast a backward look into Grandma's surprised face, I felt my rage turn to shame. I cried and cried, and wondered what she must think of me. Her grandson had turned out to be an ungrateful brat.

However, as I grew older and spent less time at her house, I started to appreciate the occasions where we would see her, and help her out as best I could. She didn't say it outright, but I knew she saw the change in me, partially due to my love for her, and also due to my growing up. I think she was proud of me near the end, but again, it was non-verbal. For all the talking Grandma did, she never really spoke about her emotions to us.

At the dinner table or the breakfast table she always encouraged others to eat more, once famously insisting on a salad bowl for cereal instead of the standard size. She was a big woman, round spectacles resting on her pointed nose and her wavy gray hair hanging down as she served us food. But what was largest was her presence, filling the house, making us at ease, letting us be wholly ourselves. A subtle thing, but how profound the difference was when she was gone.

Grandma outlived Grandpa by three or four years. I was in school in California when my grandfather died, and my parents decided that I should stay there rather than fly back for the funeral. I always felt that I had missed out on some family experience, and how this affected Grandma. When I got back home to Maryland, I noticed that she had changed. She was more distracted, more worried, her color and aura more gray. I think she loved him very much. He had been a mischievous and funny man despite being taciturn, and she had also been taking care of him for so many years that it must have been a shock to finally be released from that task. Like anyone of that age who loses a partner, she must have been acutely reminded of the approach of her own death, the most terrifying thing of all.

I remember how fast it all happened. One day, my Dad (who, even after the divorce, talked with Grandma regularly on the phone) came into the family room to let us know that Grandma was spending some time in a clinic for health reasons, and he was concerned for her; the house she lived in was her natural habitat, and like removing a fish from the water, her leaving the house could have dangerous consequences. I remember how Dad suggested my sister and I go and visit her, but my cousin Brian was living at her house at the time, so we didn't think it necessary. He called Mom, but she was living in Montana at the time, and working. So in a few days (I remember it was a Friday) my father told us the news; she had died of pneumonia in the clinic, where she was only supposed to be staying a few days. We were all shocked. My Dad was upset because he believed her death could have been easily avoided, and that she had died because she was neglected. Not only that, but he thought that she had been in pain.

Nobody on my Mom's side of the family spoke about that. My Mom and her brothers would be arriving on the next flight, and we would all be attending the funeral in Easton on Monday. The next day, I got in a car wreck and was lucky enough not to have been injured at all. My car I had been using for work was totaled, and I had no idea how I was going to get a new one in time for work on Tuesday.

The family gathered at the old house, and the difference I mentioned earlier was acute. Aside from the grief, we just didn't have that sweet woman to bind us together. We talked little; I think everyone felt a bit shocked and guilty. I remember the funeral, seeing her body, and how it really didn't look like her; it looked waxy and unnatural. The minister presiding said something about “love living on,” even though he didn't know her at all. I felt that he saw our pain, but wasn't able to do much to ease it.

As we left the grave site, I asked my Mom if Grandpa's funeral had been “worse” emotionally. She said no, that this one was much worse, since it meant nobody in the family would have a place to meet anymore. And she was right; I have not seen my cousins or aunts or uncles since that day, since my uncle Jimmy, executor of the estate, decided that I should inherit my grandma's Volvo. I drove it away from the old house by myself, feeling unfamiliar and scared behind its wheel, while emotions I could not name swam through me.

The old house was quickly bought up and replaced by a used car lot. The internet has no records of a Louisa Royer in Easton. I own no photos of her. I have not been back to visit her grave. Nothing remains except for the car she left me, the one without wires.