Long Beach—Wednesday, March 19
There are black and white tiles on the floor of my Long Beach shower.
My grandparents lived in a ‘gilded age’mansion which they built in the early 1900’s. It had a dark mahogany elegantly carved curved starcase, with a secret cubbyhole underneath, and gates at both top and bottom. It stood in the middle of room upon room of green velvet Victorian furniture, marble top tables, glass curtains and a mysterious austerity that smelled of my Grandpa’s pipe and minty licorice. The kitchen was gigantic, and always hot with the smell of meats and breads and homey concoctions stewing, and off the back of IT was the pantry. The forbidden pantry, with jars of heaven only knows what that we were not supposed to investigate but nevermind, it called and we obeyed, hence many a giggly rendez-vous on the floor nibbling and sniffing.
Upstairs? A library, a sunroom and five or six bedrooms, all light and bright, to balance the dark formality of downstairs, plus a hidden back stairway that could go down or UP into the forbidden attic that simply needed to be explored. In all of this, aside from my grandparents’ ‘suite’ there was only one bathroom…and THIS bathroom had a beautiful clawfoot tub with fancy gold faucets and it sat on a black and white tile floor.
So now…in this aftermath of moving and regurgitating feelings and life chapters…my Long Beach tiles wink at me every time I stand in the shower with water cleansing, soothing and reminding me of goodness. And then, out of nowhere thoughts of my grandmother. I did not know her well. Grandma died when I was 6, and so my memories of her are snippets mixed in with tales that I have heard.
As I am now of a certain age and family genetics are queried by the medical world, I am faced with “I have no idea about this Grandma.”
She was Scottish, she had long red hair, she raced horses in a cart and was famous for this, she had 10 children, she could squirt my grandfather in the ear when her spoon dug into a grapefruit every morning, she was smart, she was funny, she was a force, and she was big.
What else? And how old was she when she died and what of?
I called my older brother in Germany to find out.
“I don’t know, France, you have the green book of the family history…we all got a copy…oh that’s right, yours burned…I will check.”
The answer?
All of the men in the family are documented. The women are not. There was no birthdate, death date, and ZERO information on my grandmother.
HUH.
Guess she didn’t exist in the creator of ‘the book’s’ mind?
Now these tiles represent something else.
WHO WERE YOU, GRANDMA???????
I’m going to find out.