Grandma Nellie

On humor, wisdom, and extravagant grace

I’ve been thinking about my Grandma Nellie a lot these days. Maybe because it’s spring in Iowa and my rhubarb patch is resplendent with tart, red fruit (her rhubarb pie is still the best thing I’ve ever tasted). Or maybe it’s just because I wish I could talk to her. My Grandma Nellie was the wisest, kindest person I’ve ever known, and sharing a cup of coffee with her right now (perhaps with a slice of that pie) would be a balm for my soul. Goodness, I miss her.

There are a lot of adjectives I could employ to try and help you understand the kind of woman my grandmother was, but I think the following (true!) story sums her up in ways my fumbling attempts to capture her magic never could.

In her later years (she was a widow for decades and passed at 93), Grandma Nellie lived in an apartment that was attached to a nursing home. The apartments were “assisted living:” independent with the opportunity to eat meals in the community dining rooms or receive non-palliative medical care on-site. She didn’t make much use of the services available, and instead continued to volunteer as a Foster Grandparent at the local elementary school, bake cookies every week with a group of her friends, and make lunch for my dad (who worked in the same town) Monday through Friday. She even took it upon herself to become a traveling librarian of sorts, stocking a walker (that she definitely didn’t need but that worked great as a makeshift cart) with books that she checked out under her own name from the public library and then took door-to-door throughout her apartment building like a traveling encyclopedia salesman (without the encyclopedias or the sales). Grandma Nellie loved to share books with the “old people,” a statement that she usually delivered with a bit of a smirk knowing full well that in many cases she was older than the people she served.

One day, as she was making her book rounds, she approached an acquaintance’s apartment and realized that she could hear someone inside calling for help. The door wasn’t locked, so Grandma Nellie let herself in and found an elderly woman sitting on the kitchen floor. The woman had reached for something in the cabinet under the sink, lost her balance, and fell in slow motion to the floor. She wasn’t hurt, but she couldn’t get back up. So, of course, Grandma Nellie stuck out her hands to help her to her feet. It didn’t work. Two nonagenarians with a little extra padding (my grandma’s words) didn’t have the leverage or strength to reverse the situation, and Grandma Nellie ended up on the kitchen floor as well.

At this point in the telling, I was horrified at the thought of these two little old ladies stranded on the linoleum. But my grandma was laughing.

“Can you imagine?” she howled. “A pair of old ladies who’d fallen and couldn’t get up!”

“What did you do?” I asked, incredulous.

“Straightened my skirt so no one could see beneath it.”

“But how did you get up?”

“We didn’t. Not for hours.”

Hours?!? I was aghast. But my grandma wiped a tear (she was laughing that hard) as she recounted an entire afternoon getting to truly know her neighbor. The phone was in its cradle on the desk in another room, and the emergency pullstrings that were strategically placed around the apartment were all out of reach. The ladies tried to call for help for a while, but eventually gave up.

“So, how did you pass the time?” I asked, picturing the two of them crying onto each other’s shoulders.

“Well, at first we had a good laugh,” Grandma Nellie said.

I giggled just a little, thinking about their predicament and their own good-naturedness about it.

“And then we felt a bit sorry for ourselves because the floor was cold and it hurt our hips.”

I hated that for them.

“After that we started talking,” Grandma said. “She told me the story of how she met her husband, and then how she lost him. I did the same. We laughed and we cried and now we know everything about each other. I’m sorry to admit that everyone thinks she’s kind of a crank. But she’s not. I think she’s just lonely.”

My grandmother and her new friend were eventually rescued, and both had a pretty great tale to share about their adventures around the puzzle table the next day.

I suppose I could tease apart the aspects of this story and make metaphors of all the sad and lovely things that happened that afternoon at the Four Seasons. But I know my readers are smart, and Grandma Nellie’s life can and does speak for itself, so I’ll leave the exegesis of her sacrifice, humor, kindness, and humility to you.

I guess I’ve been thinking about my grandma a lot because I wish I could watch her live in this cultural moment. I believe that Grandma Nellie would throw open her arms, kitchen, and pocketbook with abandon (because she was widely known to be recklessly generous in all things). That she’d find ways to love those the world deems unlovable and surprise us with her lavish grace (something she also did over and over again). That she’d bake cookies and hand out books and be a listening ear even to those who are cranky or difficult or weird (because: precedent). That she’d make the most of every unexpected and inconvenient bump along the road as that was just her way.

She would love extravagantly, with humor and grace and the simple wisdom of kindness no matter the person or circumstance.

I miss her and I wish I could be her and I wish the rest of the world would strive to be like Grandma Nellie, too. To make the most of each linoleum floor experience—and to truly see all the people we find ourselves sitting shoulder to shoulder beside.

Thanks for reading. xoxo - Nicole

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I’ll leave you with a recipe for my grandma’s easy rhubarb cake. I have her pie recipe, too, but I’ve never gotten it to work the way it should. This, however, is perfect every time.

Grandma Nellie’s Upside Down Rhubarb Cake

INGREDIENTS

1 yellow cake mix (plus ingredients)

3 cups of rhubarb, diced

1 cup sugar

16 oz. heavy whipping cream

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare cake mix according to directions printed on the box and spread into a 9x13 pan. In a separate bowl, mix the rhubarb, sugar, and heavy whipping cream. Gently spoon over the cake mix. Bake according to package directions or until cake cracks. Serve upside down (the rhubarb mixture will fall and create a custard on the bottom of the cake) with a dollop of whipped cream.

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