The Hunt:  Part II

September 5, 1999:  It is just before Ted and my wedding at an indoor park in downtown St. Paul.  As I nervously await the ceremony, our photographs are being continually taken.  My Grandma Blanche enters the park wearing the same light blue/teal dress she has worn to all three of my brothers’ weddings, starting back in 1984.  She is also wearing light blue nylons, light blue pumps and her blue-tinted eyeglasses.  And her forever dyed hair is freshly blue.  My gay ex-boyfriend/personal attendant Brad looks up from straightening my dress and happily sighs,  “Ah, Blanche.  What a lovely symphony of blues.”

December 25, 2000:  Ted, Grandma Blanche and I are driving around Sioux Falls on Christmas afternoon, stopping at every Cenex gas station we see.  After numerous phonecalls, I discovered that Cenex stations carry the Radberry mix of Now-n-Later candy (Now-n-Laters are tart, harder versions of Starburst fruit chews.  According to their ad campaign, they start out hard and fruity and end up soft and chewy).  I have been searching for months, desperately trying to find this particular kind of Now-n-Laters.  Ted is incredibly amused, constantly shaking his head and smiling as I stop the car, jump out, run into each station and run back out with 20 to 30 packs of the special Now-n-Laters.  He is just grateful to be out of the house on Christmas.  He loves my family, but even I’ll admit that 48 hours straight can be tiresome, especially if you weren’t born a chattering Loverude.  Grandma Blanche thinks the whole search is hysterical.  She keeps giggling, saying “Uffda” each time I return to the car with a box of candy.  Grandma Blanche likes to get out and about – she will happily ride anywhere in the car, especially with me, her longtime pride and joy.

November 17, 2001:  I am an absolute wreck.  Ted and I are staying at the Super 8 because all of the relatives are in town and my mother doesn’t have room for all of us at her new townhouse.  My oldest brother, Jeff, and his family are staying at Grandma’s apartment.  My mother had asked if Ted and I wanted to stay there and we said no, that we would be too uncomfortable.  It wouldn’t be the same without Grandma there.  We are in town for Grandma Blanche’s funeral.  As I frantically change into my black pantsuit, Ted pulls on his plaid blazer with the suede elbow pads.  We hustle into his Subaru Legacy wagon and speed to the church.

December 25, 2000:  We drive to all of the Cenex stations in Sioux Falls, then move on to any Walgreens that happens to be open.  Grandma Blanche loves it.  At the Walgreens, Grandma actually comes in with me.  She likes to walk around almost any store, just looking, almost never buying anything unless it is a gift for me.  Walgreens doesn’t carry my special flavor of Now-n-Laters, but I have already gotten 38 packs from all of the Cenex stations so I don’t mind.  Grandma giggles a lot, not just when we are shopping.  She has a flirtiness about her even at age 92.  She coos and lowers her eyes, basking in male attention.  She loves Ted and flirts with him whenever she gets the chance to talk to him.  Grandma’s flirting is special – she isn’t interested in you as a romantic object, but if she flirts with you, that means she really likes you.  Ted is lucky Grandma loves him because any man who married me was going to be a hard sell with her.

November 17, 2001:  We are at Grace Lutheran Church, the church where I was confirmed back in 1987.  The minister comes up to me upon our arrival at the church.  He asks me how I am doing and acts like I should know who he is.  I am disoriented, nearly crippled with grief so I don’t recognize him.  He pulls me over to a glass case mounted on the wall just outside of the sanctuary.  Lots of pictures I don’t recognize.  “Look, there’s your confirmation class.”  Oh.  Man, I was ugly in 1987 – all big hair and bad taste.  This is Pastor Ron, I got it now.  My memory of him flies in and out of my brain in seconds.  I am too consumed by my tears.  What am I going to do without my beloved Grandma?  Grandma, whom I talked to on the phone every Sunday since 1991.  Grandma, who thought I couldn’t do anything wrong.

March 11, 2002:  I’m sitting at my computer, frantically typing a 20-page paper that is due in four days.  The phone rings.  Ted is downstairs, watching TV and eating ice cream.  I know he’s not going to answer.  I pick up the phone.  I say, “Hello” and wait.  After a small pause I hear, “Rhon – da?”  I hear an elderly woman who says my name exactly as Grandma Blanche had every Sunday for ten years, even ending my name on a high note.  Tears fill my eyes.  I think I am going crazy and that Grandma Blanche is trying to contact me from beyond the grave.  I sort of whisper/gasp, “Yes??”  “This is Nana, er, Irene.”  Oh.  It is Ted’s grandmother, calling us from California.  I launch into false cheerfulness, hoping that I won’t burst into tears before I am able to hand the telephone over to Ted.  After handing him the phone, I return upstairs, shaking and crying.  Apparently, I am not done mourning the loss of my extremely special grandmother.