Shut Up And Listen 92 Grandma Flossie I don’t think I ever told you about my Grandma Flossie (the spellchecker tells me it should be Flossy, but “ie” seems right; it wasn’t her REAL name, you know). I mentioned her in my Daily Journal Thing a couple months back, but I have no idea how many people actually read that. After my mom, she was probably the person I loved most in the world. The holiday season always reminds me of her. From early October (Canada’s Thanksgiving) through Christmas and ending with my birthday in late January, I find myself missing her. That used to be the time when we’d see her the most (although, we were close with her and often saw her in the summer and the rest of the year). Sadly, she died in May of 2000, and I’ve really started to despise family gatherings since then. You can probably understand why. I mean, to me, she was the centre of things. It was always at her house, with her in charge, and all of that. She was the nucleus and without her . . . Grandma Flossie lived about two hours from us. She lived in a very rural setting: ten minutes from a very small town and maybe twenty from a slightly bigger, but still very small town. She actually lived right in the middle of Amish country. She used to drive them places if they didn’t want to take the horse and buggy. It was interesting juxtaposing the Amish kids to my sisters and I. I mean, whenever we went to visit her, I’d often bring my Super Nintendo, as we’d stay for the weekend or longer. I always kind of felt guilty that I had all this cool stuff like a Super Nintendo, Game Boy, TV, VCR, Discman, and all that, and here there were a bunch of kids who may NEVER get to use them. My first real experience with another culture, I guess. What I remember most about Grandma Flossie was that she always got you something YOU wanted for Christmas. That’s not a materialistic thing to say, despite what some may think. That stuck with me, because that seems to sum up everything about her (from my perspective, at least). She didn’t presume to know what you wanted or needed, she made an effort to hear from you what you wanted or needed. She made an effort to suit things to the individual. Whether it was Christmas presents, or deserts, or just letting you do your own thing while visiting, she made you feel like yourself. When we’d visit, she’d never try to make me do anything (well, except eat). If I wanted to play video games, I could (well, as long as I wasn’t doing it too much and hogging the TV). If I wanted to just sit in my room and read that was fine. If I wanted to go outside and play, hey, why not? She didn’t make all these plans about what I (that means me, and anyone who went there) should do. Sometimes, we’d go up because there was a fair (and not a good kind of fair like a carnival, but like a craft fair or something), and while they went to that, I could just stay at his house and do what I wanted, or I could go along. I guess that’s not just a testament to her, but also to my mom. Grandma Flossie made the best buns in the world (she made the best lots of things in the world, I should add), and after she died (actually, I think it was before, for a few years), my mom made buns from her recipe. Honestly, they tasted the exact same in taste only; there was no difference, but for some reason, I’ve always like Grandma Flossie’s more. Whenever we went home, I ALWAYS gave her a hug. I didn’t do this for anyone else in the world. No one (okay, I gave my mom hugs). I always made sure to do so. Especially when I got older. She’d been in and out of the hospital since around Christmas of ’99. She even stayed with us after Christmas because was going to the local hospital for treatment for a couple of weeks. I didn’t go to that Easter because she was in the hospital. I didn’t want to go see her there. I never did. I couldn’t. When we were told she had died, my mom and one sister were up there, visiting her, and my dad was at work. My other sister got the phone call and then told me. I yelled, “Fuck!” when she told me. I didn’t cry at the funeral. I did have one problem though: a room full of people who WERE crying (like many others, if I see people crying, I feel like crying), so I had to tell jokes to myself. Almost laughed out loud a couple of times. All that week, I did make little jokes to my mom, sisters and CERTAIN relatives. That’s my way: everything is to be dealt with via humour. One year for Christmas, she made me a Toronto Maple Leafs blanket/pillow. It’s blue and white on top, and red underneath. You can fold the blanket into a little pocket to make it a pillow with the Leafs’ logo on it. I still sleep with the blanket. It’s always the top one. I don’t think I’ve slept without it in years. Not since the last time I spent the night at her house. This is the time of year I think about how much I miss her. I think about how much she’ll never get to see. She was always so proud of my accomplishments, and I just wish she’d gotten to see them all. I wish she’d gotten to see me enter university. To see me published for the first time. To see me get married, to have kids, all of that. I miss Christmas at her house. That was always my favourite time of the year. We’d always sleep over. I’d never be able to sleep (I still can’t), and then we’d go wake up our mom at around six thirty. She’d say we couldn’t go downstairs until seven, but we could look through our stockings if we wanted. So we’d do that, and then have to kill twenty-nine minutes. FINALLY, seven would roll around and we’d go downstairs and in the living room, either my cousin Kim or my Uncle David would be sleeping on the couch. Of course, then we had to wait for him or her to wake up. This would last two minutes before one of us ACCIDENTALLY said something a little too loud. We’d then run into the room and the presents would all be handed out and we’d open them, and Grandma Flossie would just watch, drinking her tea (or was it coffee? No, it was tea), smiling. Fuck.