{"id":95307,"date":"2015-01-28T05:45:40","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T10:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=95307"},"modified":"2015-01-28T11:11:41","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T16:11:41","slug":"four-generations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=95307","title":{"rendered":"Mama"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nFour generations: My sister, her daughter, our mother, our grandmother<\/i><\/p>\n

My grandmother (we called her Mama) died yesterday morning. She was in her 90s and had been suffering from Alzheimer’s for years. It was a snowy day yesterday, and she loved snowy days. The nurse who cared for her, a beloved figure in our family because of the care and respect she showed our grandmother, was with her when she passed. Mama had developed pneumonia, but in the last couple of days, peace had come over her. <\/p>\n

I treasure the times we would go visit her in the nursing home (run by nuns, these ladies do not mess around – those nuns are awesome). It was a beautiful spot, and the people who worked there were kind and good. <\/p>\n

But my memories of her go back to childhood, of course. My grandfather was a handsome strapping man, with thick black hair, and a wacko sense of humor. He would wear funny hats, with parrot beaks sticking out of them, or felt moose-horns emerging from the top. He would pile all 15 cousins (all of us under the age of 10) into his station wagon (no seat belts, we were all rolling around in the car completely unmoored, this was the 70s, people, we didn’t need no stinkin’ seat belts) and take us to the convenient store to buy “kenny pandy” as he called it. To us those short trips were as good as going to an amusement park. We looked forward to them all year. He was a big funny guy, and my grandmother was more sedate and elegant, but they made a great pair. She would play the piano as he accompanied her on the violin. A gorgeous couple. He died a long time ago. Yesterday on Facebook my cousin Lisa said, “It is a very sad day for us, but it is a very happy day for Grandpa \u2026” and that’s when my tears came. <\/p>\n

I grieved my grandmother a long time ago. We all had to let her go before she actually went. That’s the brutality of Alzheimer’s. But she is at peace now. <\/p>\n

Mama and Grandpa had six children: Anne, my mother, Geraldine, Timothy, Kathleen, and Michael. My uncle Michael died in his 20s, and it was horrible. I was a kid. I can’t imagine what my grandmother went through with that.<\/p>\n

She played the piano. She sang in the church choir. She did the crossword in pen (even the New York Times Saturday crossword). She was a stock wizard, buying up smart conservative stocks and sitting on them, letting them accumulate. She was a reader, an arts lover, she had a wonderful sense of humor. She had many grandkids, and we all had a personal relationship with her. She was always interested in what we were doing, and we would flood into her house on Thanksgiving and Easter, overwhelming it. Some of my first memories come from that house. She and my O’Malley grandmother got along famously. They “got” each other. There was no “horrible mother-in-law” narrative in my family dynamic. <\/p>\n

We were so fortunate to have the grandparents that we did. They were loving and funny, involved and intelligent. <\/p>\n

When we would convene on Mama’s house for Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, whatever, we would all go in the back door which opened up onto a brick patio. The house was on the side of a little hill, and so you’d open the back door, and the first thing you saw was the flight of steps leading up to the main floor where the kitchen and living room and den and everything else was. Down to the right was the basement, with a pool table. We were 9-year-old pool-sharks. The second you’d open that back door, Mama would appear at the top of the stairs, in her red turtleneck and plaid pants, or her navy blue skirt, always something color-coordinated and classy, maybe with an apron on, and she would see us appear, and clap her hands happily, laughing in excitement and welcome. I mentioned this memory on Facebook and my cousin Lisa said, “How did she manage to greet every single one of us that way?” <\/p>\n

And so we all (and there are a lot of cousins) have the same memory of her. <\/p>\n

Mama at the top of the stairs, laughing in excitement because we had arrived. I can hear that laugh now. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four generations: My sister, her daughter, our mother, our grandmother My grandmother (we called her Mama) died yesterday morning. She was in her 90s and had been suffering from Alzheimer’s for years. It was a snowy day yesterday, and she … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[1101],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95307"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=95307"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95358,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95307\/revisions\/95358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}