By Jan Wheaton

Following my Monday writing class each week, I process and visualize ideas until my subject begins to take shape.

There I was Thursday morning, moving around a bit while waiting at the eye doctor for my husband. Passing a mirror, my subject appears for this week’s theme on family. My grandma Matilda (Mattie). In the photo, seated on the right, next to my maternal grandmother. To give the listener more of a history of Grandma’s surname and birthplace, I would have to dig deep into a Tupperware that proves far too difficult for me to get at.

What I can tell you is Mattie Winsor was born in Iowa in 1887 and married Thomas Cook, four years her senior. Mattie and Thomas eventually settled in Muscoda, Wisconsin, and had six children. Their youngest daughter Barbara was killed in a tragic accident when she was only six years old. My father Darrell, next youngest, was 12.

In the early 1940s, my father and mother met in Richland Center, Wisconsin, and in 1944 they married and moved to the big city of Madison to pursue a dream.

Five years later, Grandpa Thomas died of a heart condition at the age of 66. My grandma was 62 at the time and needed a place to call home. I came along in 1953 and within the following two years, Grandma Mattie came to live with our family–Mom, Dad, my older sister, and me.

Mattie was part of our family for the next 13 years. Mom and Dad were working all the time by now, owning their own restaurant. Grandma was always there, a constant presence, yet most of the time saying very little. Grandma rarely smiled. Never discussed feelings. And warm and fuzzy would not be words to describe her. She was quiet, but her presence in my formative years gave me a sense of security.

The picture tells a pretty good story. Grandma Mattie was small in stature, slightly humped over, teeny tiny around the middle. Grandma ate like a bird, weighing in at 100 pounds on a good day. She was pale, always cold, wore a housedress and glasses, and her hair appeared unattended to. It didn’t matter. She was always present. Grandma loved to tend her Sophia-colored rose bushes along the south wall of our cozy Cape Cod home. Not much of a cook in the kitchen, my fond memory was riding the city bus with Grandma heading downtown for lunch and a fashion show at Manchester’s. After lunch we would ride the concierge-managed elevator up and down, browsing the different departments. Now and then, Grandma had a little extra money in her pocketbook to buy me something.

Mattie was very strict about one thing in her life. You didn’t mess with her chocolates.

Grandma loved her box of chocolates, and she hid them from everyone else in the family. That little bird became a hawk, protecting and guarding her chocolates. Favorite hiding places were closets and drawers. Favorite new game for me? Finding them. When found, I performed the fine art of paring knife skills Grandma taught me. Slice a corner to find the one you’d like. Place the others neatly back in the box, exposed side down.

The difficulty for Grandma and for me came after the move to our new house in 1968. Grandma fell and broke her hip. After some rehab and returning home, something had changed.  Grandma was forgetting things like turning the burners of the stove off. Now I, a teenager, it all seemed to happen so fast for me. Before I knew it, Grandma Mattie was being driven by my father to the Nazareth House in Stoughton. She never returned. I never saw her again.

My sister tells me that my parents were trying to shield me from the pain, a recurring theme that I would not suggest. It hurt me deeply. Grandma died in 1975. I was at her service. Years later, Grandma Mattie came to my bedside in a dream to let me know she was okay.

Today in the mirror, that’s who I see. Mattie. Me. Looking so alike. Me, six inches shorter, pale, always cold, slightly bent over, breasts heading south. Skinny, weighing in at 105 pounds. And on most days, hair unattended to. In homage to you, Grandma. I am smiling, as I stand tall in the mirror, working hard to build strong bones and prevent injury. At the same time, hoping to end the vicious cycle of dementia that ravaged your brain and that of my father. I missed you. I wanted to come and see you. So until we meet again. “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get,” do you, Grandma!

© 2023 Jan Wheaton

Jan Wheaton considers herself a person who writes from her heart. Her concern is not with proper writing techniques, but with documenting an honest reflection of her life in her own voice. The stories she has to tell are generated from a chance encounter, a planned event, or something said in passing. She believes all stories start with one simple thought. When she allows her thoughts to flow from her heart to the paper, something magical happens for her, a cleansing of sorts, a healing.