A grandma for all seasons

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For many kids, grandparents are like Christmas trees: They visit your house once a year as part of a festive occasion, and after the presents have been opened and the fancy meals eaten, you start wondering how long they're going to hang out in your living room.

When I was young, grandparents had their place – and that was in a photo album, or at the other end of a fairly tedious phone call interrupting the Disney movie of the week.

And yet, in this modern techie world, where people have traded in face-to-face conversation for marathon texting sessions, my own daughter has grown up with a meaningful, affectionate relationship with her grandmother.

My memories of my own grandmothers are few, if very specific. On my Chicago side, my grandmother was an extremely thin, elegant woman who was about as much fun to cuddle as her long metal knitting needles. After she died, I inherited a half-dozen wool sweaters knitted in the mock turtleneck style of Audrey Hepburn. Every time I tried to wear one, I ended up ripping it off my body in a fit of scratching. The sweaters, like my grandmother, resisted the human touch.

On my Prairie Mennonite side, my grandmother expressed love through vereneke and jam-filled cookies. During her rare visits, she would invade the kitchen with a giant sack of flour as ammunition. The only time she seemed to notice me was when I was eating her food, and I never seemed to consume enough gravy to meet her satisfaction.

So it is with happy amazement that I watch my daughter chat excitedly about visiting her grandmother on a Saturday afternoon. My husband's mother lives a half-hour from our house, so it's a common and casual occurrence. When my daughter arrives, there are always whispered secrets and hugs between them. It's a relationship my daughter seems to find quite delightful.

It's not that my husband's mother is gregarious. At family gatherings she will often listen silently while others share tales from their busy young lives. But you often have the sense that she's having a bit of a giggle to herself, taking our modern tribulations none too seriously.

Born in the 1930s into a West Coast First Nations family, she had to earn her keep before most kids learned to ride a bicycle. She spent summers picking berries in the Seattle area to help ensure there was enough food for the family. She once shared a story about being a teenager who had lost her two front teeth early in life. One summer, she kept back the $40 from a month of picking fruit to visit the dentist. Her mother was furious, and warned that she would have to be satisfied with dining on her new dentures when winter came.

When I voice complaints about the sleepless nights spent with my second child, I often see her smile. She raised six children virtually on her own, living on a reserve.

With chubby circular knitting needles, she created traditional Cowichan sweaters, which were sold to put food on the table. This was before First Nations art became the staple decoration of a middle-class home. It was during the era of the residential school.

I've heard her refer to residential school only once: When we first moved to Victoria, and were living in a seventh-floor apartment, she arrived for a visit breathing heavily and hanging on to the arm of her second daughter. She'd climbed the stairs because she was afraid to enter the elevator. She explained that she couldn't go into small, confined spaces because they reminded her of residential school, when the nuns would lock her in the closet.

My daughter is 5, too young to understand the legacy of her grandmother's life. She doesn't know her grandmother was her own age when sent to residential school.

A few years ago, I bought a stunning white Cowichan sweater from my husband's mother, for myself and as a keepsake for my daughter to grow into. One day, I will share some of the stories from her grandmother's life; try to explain, as a white woman really can't, the challenges and triumphs of being a First Nations child when racism was as acceptable and common as grandma's apple pie.

Unfortunately, my daughter's grandmother probably won't be around to tell those stories herself. She has aggressive cancer in her throat that has already changed the pitch and timbre of her voice, though not its soul.

When we went to visit in September, I was so nervous about what to say to her: I felt mute with concern over her eroding health. Growing up in an academic household, the brain always took higher billing than the heart. In moments of intense emotional stress, I sometimes unintentionally withhold affection.

My daughter has no such handicap. When we entered the small wooden house on the Cowichan First Nation, she walked boldly up to her grandmother and gave her a long and loving hug. Then she stood by her side, letting her rub her arm, up and down, an elderly woman feeling her greatest legacy, the children of her children.

It made me so happy, and just a little bit jealous.

Jean Paetkau lives in Victoria.