Hi, I'm Kirsten Berrett, the oldest child of Sharon and the second oldest of all the grand kids. I was asked to share a memory or two with you about my grandma, or as we called her, Grammy, but I have had a pretty difficult time writing this.
It's been hard because it's impossible to narrow it down to just a couple out of a lifetime of memories. She was just always there. For as long as I can remember, my grandma has been such a presence in my life.
I think she must have babysat me quite frequently when I was little because many of my earliest memories were of me spending time with her in her home.
You might think that a little girl spending hours and hours at her Grandma's house would be boring, but I don't remember it that way.
She didn't have a lot of toys for me to play with, but to me her house was one big treasure hunt. Rooms and rooms full of exciting and interesting thing waiting to be discovered. Unfortunately for me, she wasn't the biggest fan of me going through her stuff, and me being a little kid, I never understood why not.
Sometimes I would try and sneak downstairs to explore the rooms full of hidden treasures down there. All those boxes chock full of items from days gone by behind closed doors was more than I could handle. Of course now as an adult, I totally get not wanting some little kid rummaging through my stuff.
One thing she let me do which I loved was to play dress-up in her bedroom. She had quite the collection of wigs and scarves and hats and bags and jewelry. The jewelry was my favorite. I was bewildered by the fact that she would let me try on her jewelry and parade around the house. She assured me they weren't the priceless jewels I thought they were, but I just knew she was wrong and that she really had a secret fortune waiting to be discovered in her dresser drawers.
It wasn't all fun and games though. She'd do her best to put me to work. My favorite job was picking the black raspberries. I think she needed me to pick them because the bushes were dense and thorny and I could easily crawl into the tight spaces where all the best berries grew. Of course she never seemed too pleased when I emerged from the depths of the bushes with an empty bowl, and a full belly. To this day black raspberries are my very favorite berry.
My least favorite job was dusting. She would hand me a dust cloth and try to motivate me to dust her house by telling me it was fun and that we could "make a game out of it!" She would say, "Let's see how fast we can get this room done!" But I knew better. I knew she was just using me for cheap labor because nobody in their right mind in the history of the world had ever called work "fun."
But times go on. Things change. As I grew older, I didn't need a babysitter anymore and I spent less and less time with her one on one. But Grammy was always still there. She would stop by my parent's house frequently as we were blessed to live only minutes away from her my whole life growing up. I'd see her regularly, but stopped spending any real time with her. I grew up. Got busy.
And then one day I became a new mommy. I had a house and family of my own, and I was out in the world trying to find my way.
As a female member of this family, it's pretty much expected that you learn to make caramels. My grandma got the recipe from her neighbor, adapted it a bit (I've heard the original recipe actually called for paraffin wax) and then passed the recipe on to her daughters, who in turn passed the recipe on to the next generation. Although I can now make them in my sleep, my very first attempt was a total disaster. I overcooked them so long, I didn't know what was harder, them, or the glass pan they were in. In my inexperience and naiveté, I was so sure my pan (and the caramels) were a lost cause and I would probably have to chuck the whole thing (pan and all) in the trash. Grammy, in her kindness and years of experience, took my pan home, rescued both the caramels and the pan and returned to me the next day a perfectly clean pan and a bag full of perfect, soft, wrapped caramels. In my mind she had done the impossible.
Sometimes she'd bring me things that she thought I might like that she found somewhere in the basement or a closet in her house. Sometimes they were things people like me might consider to be junk, like a picture she cut out of a magazine that she suggested I might like to frame and hang on the wall, and other times, they were priceless treasures. I remember once in particular she brought over an old Christmas letter she had written decades before. She thought I might like reading it see a tiny slice of life of when my mom was a little girl. Besides being a truly fascinating read, I was surprised to discover not only what a great writer she was, but how funny she was. I was gratified to know that my former self, the little four year old who so curiously wanted to explore her grandmas basement, was right that there were indeed treasures to be found.
But as a young mom, what meant the most to me was the help she so freely offered with my young kids. She's often talked about her posterity and how much joy they bring her, and she showed that love in action and deed. She and Nick, my oldest, were buddies when he was just a little guy. They built snowmen and planted trees, And just like when I was little, she put him to work doing little jobs like watering plants and dusting furniture. We didn't have a camera for the first few years of Nick's life, and she kept me supplied with priceless pictures of my first born.
And then came my second child, Madison. As sweet and wonderful as she is now, she was nicknamed a tyrant back then for good reason. She must have been colicky and miserable because she made my life miserable. She needed to be help all day and night. Not just held, but WALKED. I think I averaged only a couple of hours of sleep a night.
There were days where I was so exhausted and sleep deprived I thought I was going to lose my mind. And I might have if it weren't for Grammy. She would regularly call me up and ask if she could come over and hold Maddie. "I need some time with my sweet little great grand daughter. Can I come over and just hold her for a couple of hours? You can do whatever you need to. Go to the store, take a shower, or even take a nap." I always opted for the nap.
This simple act of service meant more to me than she could ever know. She acted like I was doing her a favor, but with those extra few hours of sleep, I felt like a person again. Still very tired, but at the very least a little saner. And we had some good talks after I woke up. I gained a new found appreciation and understanding of my grandma in those few short years.
And then we moved to Arizona shortly before Maddie's first birthday, and my time spent with her pretty much came to an end. Oh sure, I'd see her when I'd come to visit during the summers, but nothing like before.
But I will forever be grateful for the time I was able to spend with her, and know my life was blessed because she was a part of it, and I also like to think she would be happy to know that there are countless Arizonans that she's never met who think her caramels are the absolute best they've ever had.
