A Prickly Pear; A Beloved Pair
Throughout my life, my grandmother and I bonded over music. She loved coming to my band concerts — in particular, the jazz concerts — to see me play the trumpet. I still see her in the audience bopping along to Glenn Miller’s Chattanooga Choo Choo.
In my teens, I regularly visited her condo — often to relax but typically to help do chores for a few extra bucks (The smell of vacuuming thousands of dead ladybugs from her screened-in porch every spring is forever seared into my memory).
During my visits, we would talk about music, and I’d make my way through her collection — always being sure to give some airtime to The Irish Tenors.
When I started making music with my friends, I sometimes brought her a tape. She would politely sit there and listen. When it finished, she would nod and say, “OK. Well, that’s something, isn’t it? Good for you.” She had a way with these types of layered interactions. Polite, honest, and a little…prickly…all at once.
As her mind began to slip toward dementia, so did the content of our conversations. I read somewhere that providing an “anchor” object from the past could be helpful, so I bought her a little turquoise Studebaker radio — something that was easy to carry around.
She once told me she had one just like it when she was a young girl. I don’t know if that’s true. It doesn’t matter. I found it fun to imagine her in the 40s sitting there listening to whatever music came on, and then now — many years later — finding the classic music station and re-experiencing whatever feelings those tunes provided her.
When she passed, I knew exactly how I’d pay my own personal tribute with the help of a friend and favorite artist, @bigolebrat.
The prickly pear cactus symbolizes her capacity for both causing beauty & pain to those closest to her. The radio symbolizes the interest in music we shared, as well as our mutual interest in each other’s lives.
They’re symbols of a complex person who loomed large in my life once, someone I’m forever grateful to have known.
Goodbye, Gram. Irish eyes are still smiling.
