Food and Guests
It’s Christmas time. There’s a lot to do. There’s a lot of people coming over, boy. Gotta make the sugar cookies, the peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses on them, raspberry bars, and I can’t decide if we should have a ham or roast a bird. I think I’ll pick up a ham, since we’re still finishing the Turkey soup from Thanksgiving. We’re gonna need to start making the pies too. I’ll make a few apple, a strawberry rhubarb, a blueberry, a banana cream, and a lemon meringue. Do you think that will be enough pies? I’ll do a chocolate cream too. Just in case.
I have been lucky enough to have had three grandmothers. One was a Chemist. A renaissance woman ahead of her time; holding a masters’ degree as well as twelve of her own children; she was a teller of tales and the very image of patient love. The second bares magic with every word that crosses her lips with her singsong voice. She has the ability to make anyone feel like the most special person in the world. She’s just as likely to write you a card just to let you know that you are remembered, as she is to build a dam down in the crick with a grandchild. Then there was Mimi. She wasn’t a genius crusader of women’s equity. She wasn’t a pulsing beacon of grandmotherly love. She seemed plain; unexciting; and lacking the mystique which the other two swam in so gracefully. It was easy to miss what was special about Mimi. She was the most religious and the most profane of my three grandmothers. Mimi was the grandmother who swore. It wasn’t until college that I realized I actually liked her, very much. I always knew I liked her cooking, as a person; she was an acquired taste. What comes as no surprise now, is how very highly the other two grandmothers thought of her. They know one of their own…
Mimi lived in Deerfield for almost all of her married life. In fact, if you are from Deerfield, you are probably related to an Iott by either blood or marriage; maybe both. It is a challenge to think of Mimi or Deerfield without thinking of the other. She’d lived in one house on West River Street next to Nora, which burnt to the ground one night, only seizing the life of the family dog. Then the family built a one story ranch on the ashes of its predecessor. Amazingly, in its rebirth, Mimi and Pipi still built a basement where folks had to bend over to get into it. It wasn’t until it had become a full family hacienda that they decided to tear up the concrete and dig down another foot and a half. Fortunately, as a good Catholic Family they had bred a work force who could take earth and concrete by the wheelbarrow full up the steep storm cellar steps.
Oh the storm cellar….doors. Where the water-hill had been the entertainment for Mimi’s children, and the grandchildren as we grew taller; the storm cellar doors were the key feature of the red house for every little one. Hours were spent by each of us, running down, pounding feet against hollow metal. A racket that says, the kids are fine…their over there playing.
If you were to open the storm cellar doors, and walk down, you’d have stepped into the foundation of the family. An auxiliary kitchen—good for canning projects; a bar; a wood shop which also doubled as the site where the concord grapes grown along the backyard fence became Pipi’s homemade wine; a hearth where Pipi would sit, rest his elbows on his knees and play harmonica; and a series of picnic tables. You never know how many might show up….
It was down in that basement where Mimi would hang stockings three rows high, all the way across the wall. The number of stockings was always changing, she had a husband, eleven children and countless grandchildren, step-grandchildren, great grandchildren, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, ex-sons-in-law, ex-daughters-in-law, ex-sons-in-law who spoke to her more than the daughters they’d married and divorced. Somehow she kept track and they would all get something.
Mimi wasn’t the type to vocalize her love. There were many times when Aimee would say “I love you mom.” Mimi would say “thank you my hon.” It was almost as if she were allergic to saying the words. She was not a ceremonious person, and she was not an emotionally expressive person.
It seems like I’m describing an impediment, but after working with nuns for five years, I think that it’s not a character flaw, but a very different approach to the virtue of humility. Mimi, and many of the nuns I know have this enormous discomfort at receiving personal praise, deep appreciation, or individual attention. The spirit of this phenomenon is not a rejection of love, but really a stepping aside—acting as a vessel of love, be it intentional or ingrained, and giving love through acts of service. Please pat your belly and say amen!
It’s been getting cold lately. The wind has been blowing hard across our Michigan hills. Mimi left on Friday just before I was getting home to these chills. I arrived to a house empty of people, and the wind was blowing through me. In all of the bustling across trains, taxis, airplanes and cars, it had been hard to find a moment’s time to grieve. When I finally found my way to bed in a cold house, it was under a quilt bought by Mimi because of all the Irish shamrocks, and a quilt knitted by her over two decades ago, where I found warmth. No kid looks at a blanket as the gift of all gifts. But almost every night of my life has been spent under an act of her love given as modest service. I bet many of you have one of her quilts too.
That other quilt; the one with the Shamrocks of Ireland—there’s something that needs to be said of Ireland. If you didn’t already know, Mimi’s maiden name was Blaney, and her blood is as Irish as they make it (minus the Guinness, and Irish Whisky of course). She loved Ireland, and everything about it. There was a yearning to walk over hills and pastures of her ancestors deep within her bones. Somewhere in our family there is a relic, a chip off a bone of Saint Patrick. Her longing could similarly fill a reliquary. For many years a statue of Saint Patrick also blessed her home, and served as a connection to that place, that holy place in her heart where she longed to go, but would never explore in her living years. This is the stuff that Irish songs are made of, perhaps one day her story will be sung in a ballad in a pub serving Shepard’s pie. Or perhaps one of you will twist Uncle Pat’s arm until he sings Oh Danny Boy, she would sometimes cry when he would sing it. Perhaps he would take us, to wherever she went when he would sing.
Though she never made it to Ireland, her life did include plenty of travel. Just several years ago, I found out about her trips to South and Central America. Pipi would win trips through his salesmanship, and off they would go, to some far off place. The better part of the travels of Mimi and Pipi surrounded the family that they had created together. There are lots of stories about trips to Saint Agnes, but those were all before my time.
The trip that I remember best didn’t include them…initially. There was a cottage that my family, the Couches, and Nona would rent every summer, not far from the shore of Lake Michigan. It was in a little town called Manistee. We had been there a few days, and I think that Mim and Pip were returning from a trip to see Martha and Steve in Iron River (that’s in the U.P if you didn’t know already). They thought they might swing past. (If you look at a map, you’ll see that “Swinging past” Manistee, isn’t exactly a slight detour on an already grueling trip. If you would like a snapshot of the faith of Mim and Pip, imagine a time before cell phones. They didn’t have the number to the cottage where we were staying, or the address. And they thought they would stop on by a town they had never been in and find a house where their kids were staying. Well that’s either steadfast faith, or mad cow crazy.
As they drove through town they passed the tiny harbor, and rolled past the IGA. Waiting to turn out of the IGA parking lot were two family members. “Hey! Isn’t that….” Horns were honked and Mim and Pip were reeled in like a net-full of Lenten smelt.
The rest of the week was filled with card games where the Mimi and Pipi sent us grandkids into fits of laughter as they spoke to each other in the language built inside a decades old marriage.
After the decision was made to sell the Deerfield house, Mimi and Pipi moved to Blissfield near Bob and Marge. That’s where Pipi did most of his dying. They still had a kitchen that was always in motion. But a little less room for hosting the multitudes. After Pipi passed away, Mimi moved into Micky’s house. It was closer to the girls, and there was a little more space to have a big table. Nona shared one of her dog’s with Mimi, and they got on famously. They watched old movies together with the volume on the television turned up, as not to deprive the neighbors of classical dialogue. She had a garden that she could pull a few vegetables out of, and life was good.
After another surgery, Mimi moved to the high-rise downtown. Her apartment, often mentioned from her nursing home bed. She wasn’t able to lift her cast iron pan any longer. (Nona has it now, I’ve been told. She’ll keep it well oiled, and won’t use soap to wash it). There she became deep friends with Frannie, the woman down the hall. Frannie had a key. She would let herself in, would make the coffee, and they would sit and talk it all over, every morning.
The week before I left Michigan, I had a series of late night visits with Mimi. I knew there was a serious likelihood of her dying while I was away. One evening was especially excellent. As she grew closer to death, the line between memory and reality grew more permeable. I walked into the room, and instead of her usual greeting of me mistaken as Father Marty, she knew me for who I am. She told me she had some bacon on in the next room. We went on and on about the lovely meal that we were preparing, and the whole family was in on the project somehow. One was frying eggs, another chopping potatoes to fry in the bacon grease, another was buttering toast. We spoke of how good everything smelled, and we just couldn’t wait for the first bite.
“Is the coffee almost ready?” she would ask.
“It’s still perking.” I would say.
“I’m going Chris. Little by little.”
“That’s ok mim. It’s ok to go.” She looked relieved. “Mim, what are your favorite things?”
“What do you mean?”
“Anything. What did you enjoy most in life?”
“Food and Guests.”
“I love you Chris. Are we alright?” I nodded. “Thank you. God bless you Chris.”
***
One of my favorite nuns says that we die when we are able to accept unconditional love. That was the first time that I heard Mimi speak love to me. And she was speaking it to everyone. And everyone was speaking it to her. She died in love with her family. She died with her family loving her.
It’s Christmas time. There’s a lot to do. We’ve gotta get the Christmas city set up. My Herm made it for me. Gotta make the sticky buns and the cinnamon rolls. We’ve gotta get ready for Midnight mass. There’s eggs, bacon, coffee and juice, for breakfast afterward.
