Gram
I got some crappy news two weeks ago today and my Mom called me at work for consolation. I won’t get into the crappy news here, thanks to my newfound and constnantly-evolving barrier between blogable and non-blogable life. But at one point in the conversation, she said to me “Well, when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.”
It was a moment you can’t fully appreciate unless you’re a member of a mother/gay son relationship.
So, two days later my Grandma dies and we’re all headed up to Ohio for the funeral. She’d been in an assisted living facility (in various capacities) for about a year and was then in the full-time care. During the eulogy, after discussing her work teaching English as a second language, her family and her friends, the rabbi felt compelled to mention her lifetime love affair with shopping.
Even in her later days, she would still remember the record number of catalogues she got in one day (thirty-seven).
I guess when you get older certain aspects of your personality get exaggerated. In my Grandma’s case, it was her compulsion to go to Chico’s. She frequently brought it up, so the nurses at the facility finally resolved to put on a fashion show. They arranged with Chico’s to get some clothes, and all of the nurses modeled the outfits. Apparently, there was a microphone involved with this production and someone made the mistake of giving it to my Grandma. She took the opportunity to rave about the fashions and to laud the good people at Chico’s.
I can only imagine myself in my 80s — screaming about reality shows on the hologram television and wondering why my Asian grandkids don’t call.