I wrote this over two years ago.  We thought she was gone, four or five times since 2022.  Now it is the sad time to post it.

 

For most of my life I’ve only had one grandparent.  I never knew Grandma Ladano – she’s been gone over 70 years.  Grampa Ladano died in 1981.  Grampa Winter left us in 1984.  For over 40 years, I’ve only had one grandparent and she’s the best one you could ever ask for.

I was a cheeky kid.  Around the time I started highschool, I started calling my grandma “Dolly”.  Everybody else called her Dolly (her real name is Doris), so we kids started doing it too.  She never quite liked it though.  I reverted to “grandma” in more recent years.  I can’t remember the last time I called her “Dolly” but that’s what her friends called her!

She babysat me when I was really young and I have so many memories of being at her house.  Playing games like Mousetrap and Clue.  Reading books, watching the Flintstones.  Grandma and Grampa took me to Welland to see the big boats at the canal.  How exciting that was!  I remember those big ships, so long that I could not even fit one into a single camera frame.

She was always good to us.  When visiting, she’d serve up my favourite pork chops:  in mushroom soup!  Or, I’d eat all her Rice Krispies.  My dad and I would dig carrots out of her garden.  Oh, how she hated us stealing her carrots!  Later on in life, I would have dinner at her house every Thursday night in between classes at school.  Thursdays were my busy day.  I had day classes and night classes.  There was a short break between the end of the afternoon class and the night class, and my grandma lived really close to the university.  I would eat with her for an hour and head back to school.  We always had a nice visit.  I remember during exams, I once forgot my pen so I quickly drove to her house, got a pen, and got back to my exam just in time to start!  Her house – so many memories!  An epic front hill, and lots of fun adventures in her yard.

She always tried to treat us right, though she didn’t know exactly what we liked.  One birthday, she wrote me a cheque and asked me to use it to buy “one of your CD records”.  Another time she bought me Ozzy Osbourne’s Blizzard Of Ozz, with him dressed as a priest holding a big cross!  I know she didn’t pick that one!  As a staunch Catholic she never would have picked that one!  She prefers John McDermott to John “Ozzy” Osbourne.

When we travelled with Grandma, she was always a bit slower than the others, so I always hung back a bit to make sure she was OK.  “Wait for the grandma!” I would shout as we walked through an airport in Toronto hauling all our bags.  “Wait for the grandma!”  I would always make sure we didn’t lose sight of her.  Calgary 1997 with Grandma and Aunt Marie was one of my favourite trips ever.

In the years following that, I enjoyed driving Grandma to the cottage.  I would pick her up after work, and we’ve drive up together.  I played the music a little lower for her.  She would point out things along the road that I couldn’t look at because I was too busy driving.  “Look at the dandelions!” she would say with excitement, not realizing I was too busy keeping my eyes on traffic.  She never drove, which we didn’t understand when we were little kids.  An adult who didn’t drive?  How unusual!

We loved spending time with her, shopping at Zellers or going to one of the restaurants she liked such as the Cedar Barn.  She hates this story, but I can’t help but laugh.  She wanted to treat my sister and I to lunch at the Cedar Barn, but when it came time to pay, they didn’t accept cheques or credit cards.  Cash only.  My sister and I scrounged enough together to pay for the lunch.  It was funny to us at the time.  She didn’t think it was funny, but I still smile.  Sounds like a scene from a movie!  Grandma invites the kids out to lunch, but then realizes she can’t pay!  I think it’s pretty funny.

Speaking of scenes from movies, in 1998 we all went to the theater as a family:  my mom, my aunt, my grandma and my sister.  My mom and sister came with me to see Star Trek: Insurrection.  Grandma and Aunt went to see You’ve Got Mail.  Grandma loved it!  Coming out, she said “I just saw the nicest movie.  It was called There’s Mail Waiting For You!”.  A few years later, she was telling us about another movie she liked called Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?  She had actually seen O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

Most of all, I’ll always cherish how much she loves a visit.  The longer the better.  Just a visit is all she needs to be happy.  As she got older, she had to sell the cottage.  She could no longer handle the travel.  She sold the cottage to my sister, and every summer I make cottage videos for her to watch.  One time I forgot my laptop.  She noticed right away!  The videos are a highlight of any visit.  But all she needs is a visit.

In the end, she got tired.  Tired of being tired all the time.  She stayed for us, but everyone has their time to go.

I had the best grandma.  I’m a lucky grandson.