(Post by Tracy)
Saturday we had a beautiful funeral service for my grandmother who passed away on March 6. She was 89, and Dennis, Jennifer, and I were her 3 grandkids. We loved her a lot, and she will be missed, but she really did leave us with a wealth of great memories, some of which I shared in the eulogy I read on Saturday:
First, on behalf of my family, I’d like to thank you all for being here today and helping us remember and celebrate the life of my grandmother, Sylvia.
A nice part about giving her eulogy has been thinking back over the time I spent with her and remembering so many good memories. I’m so thankful that I was able to have her in my life for nearly 30 years, and even more thankful for the close relationship that Dennis, Jennifer, and I were able to have with our mormor (the Swedish term for grandma).
As I was reminiscing, the reoccurring element of all my Mormor memories was laughter. She truly loved life, and she liked to have a good time. She always enjoyed a visit, and she never wanted to miss out on the excitement. She would be the first to admit to her nosiness, wanting to know what everyone was up to all the time, but it was because she was interested and loved hearing about what was going on in the lives of her friends and family. She was easygoing, and she was able to laugh at any situation. Even though she had bad eyesight and basically couldn’t see for the last decade of her life, she was able to laugh at herself if she mistook a chair for a person and tried to talk to it. She was blunt and felt comfortable asking, “Who are you?” to the person walking into a room, and then she would laugh after recognizing their voice and give them a hug or a kiss and say how happy she was to see them.
My husband Tom mentioned this week that he especially remembers how welcoming she was, and how welcome she always made him feel, right from the very beginning of our relationship. One night our family went to dinner at Fuddruckers, a burger place where you pick up the food at the counter and have to pick up all your own condiments or toppings. Tom brought Mormor her food and pretended he was her waiter, asking what other things he could bring her. Mormor played right along, placing her drink order with Tom and commenting on what great service the restaurant had.
And she loved going out to eat, especially going out for a good burger – be it Fuddruckers, Steak and Shake, or Hackneys, where she would occasionally order something new and then state what would become our favorite Mormorism: “I should have ordered the patty melt.”
She loved food, she loved coffee, and she loved dessert. She liked her coffee black, but she liked her dessert sweet: chocolates, coffee cake, regular cake, ice cream, coffee-flavored-candies, cookies. She was good at sharing, but in a way that showed you that you must be someone pretty special that she would share something so delicious with you so willingly. For Christmas, I bought her a big bucket of bakery-made sugar cookies; her eyes lit up at the word “cookies,” and she was excited to share them with the nursing staff at Covenant Village, but she also planned on hiding them in the back of her drawer so no one would sneak them without her knowing and gobble them up.
I also remember the homemade Swedish pancakes she and Great Mormor would serve us kids on Saturday morning when we would spend the weekend at their apartment in Glenview. And I remember the delicious Sunday night dinners of Swedish meatballs, lignonberries, and mashed potatoes at their Deerfield apartment, where we would all watch “Malcolm in the Middle” together after dinner.
She liked watching Wheel of Fortune and the Frugal Gourmet. In her car, we would sing along to one of the two cassette tapes she owned: the soundtrack to Phantom of the Opera or the soundtrack to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Both soundtracks have a special place in my heart.
I also don’t want to leave out the memories of our amazing 3-week family trip to Sweden in the summer of 2002. As with any family vacation, there were moments that were trying, but overall that trip was full of memories that I cherish, and that (again) make me laugh, such as simply remembering the rental car situation. Mom reserved a van through Avis, the rental car company, and when we picked up our vehicle, we realized they were renting us the Avis van. I mean the white, 8-passenger, full-sized van with AVIS written on the side in big letters. For the next three weeks, dad was our Swedish bus driver, Mormor the (actual) Swedish backseat driver, and Mom the passenger who tried to pronounce the Swedish road signs for Mormor to translate and relate back to Dad. (I think he mostly relied on the road signs’ pictures!)
Because we grew up living close to Mormor (and Great Mormor, once they started living together), she was one of our best babysitters. She would drive us to ballet class, piano lessons, swim practice, ham radio class, ice skating lessons…
When Dennis and I were in grade school, taking a weekly class to earn our ham radio licenses, Mormor was in charge of taking us to class one Thursday when Mom and Dad were busy. Dennis and I were old enough to remember that the class was held at one of the libraries, but young enough to not pay attention to what library it was. Mormor drove us around, having us run inside the Deerfield library, the Highland Park library, and the Highwood library, before we eventually gave up and missed class. Why Mom and Dad neglected to tell Mormor that class was held at the Northbrook library, I don’t know, but it was another funny situation to look back on, imagining the wild-goose chase of a grandma and her grandkids trying to hunt down a random ham radio class being held in the basement classroom of one of the suburban libraries.
When Mormor took Jennifer to her ice skating lessons, she sat with me and Dennis in the stands, watching Jen practice her cross-overs and turns. There was one of those coffee machines in the lobby that dropped the paper cup and then filled it with a steaming beverage, and she would buy a coffee for herself and a hot chocolate for me and Dennis.
As we got older, we realized the fun in asking Mormor about what Mom was like as a kid. Those conversations always guaranteed a good laugh, especially if Mom was with us. It’s amazing how they would remember the same factual details: “Diane decided to paint her bedroom one afternoon when she was in high school,” but that they each had their own spin. Mom saying: “Mormor was ok with it, she knew I wouldn’t do anything to make too much trouble,” and Mormor following up with, “I never had any control over her!” which would cause Mom to gasp in defense, Mormor to burst into laughter, and Mom to crack up at the misrepresentation of her younger self. But as a mother-daughter team who spent much of my mom’s childhood and young adulthood as just the two of them, I’m sure there was a lot of laughter in that house as well, and a lot of love. As good a job Mormor did as our babysitter when we were younger, Mom did a great job caring for Mormor as she got older. I know it was hard at times, but Mom (and Dad) did so much for Mormor, and I know Mormor appreciated it and loved them all the more for that.
Even our dogs loved Mormor. Especially Buster, the golden retriever we had growing up. Buster was smart. He had Mormor trained to the point where he would recognize her walking in the back door, let her pet him hello, and then run to his dog dish where she would (without fail) give him a big scoop of dog food, regardless of whether or not he had just finished his dinner.
As her health started going downhill in the last year or so, I was still able to form more good memories of time with her. This summer she had pneumonia and was in such bad shape that she wasn’t able to speak. When we visited her at the hospital, we brought along letters that her husband Elmer had written to his family during World War II. She wasn’t able to hold a conversation, but she was able to completely understand what she heard, so we read her his letters, and it was so sweet to see the smile and calm it brought to her face.
Mormor had a great and full life. I believe she lived it to the fullest. And after so many years as a widow, I like to think of her and my mom’s dad finally together again, joining her mom (Great Mormor), and her dad (Morfar) and kindly leaving us with so many great thoughts and jokes and moments to remember her by. We love you, Mormor.
