Bob, our northernmost neighbor, controls our water. He prefers to start irrigating his hay meadows in April, but he doesn’t turn on the water for us until mid-May. It’s the way he’s always done it, even before Dan and I lived here. We don’t ask questions because, first of all, his family’s ranch is at the bottom of Blue Mesa Reservoir. Second, because, boy, it’d be a bummer to have our water spitefully shut off. The upside is that it gives us more time to clean dead leaves, twigs, and melted winter dog poop out of our irrigation ditches.
That’s what my boyfriend Dan, my brother, and I were doing on May 2nd. That was also the same day a surprise cousin popped by with two family heirlooms.
In early January, surprise cousin Nancy mailed a bunch of family photos to my deceased grandmother’s address in Maryland. She didn’t know that Granny had passed nearly a year prior. My immediate family hadn’t been in touch with her for decades. After my family enjoyed looking at the photographs during their late Christmas celebration, my Uncle Sammy tried to call her. He ended up emailing instead.
Uncle Sammy is a very sweet man. He’s had a good but rough life, especially in the last few years, and finds joy in surfing and chickens and being outside. In his email, Sammy introduced himself, lovingly updated Nancy on the handful of relatives that have passed away recently, and extended his gratitude for the pictures. “We wanted to thank you so much for the pictures, we have been enjoying them so much. Lots of memories for dad and some for me too,” he wrote. He closed by telling her about the Southampton Township Facebook group that many of our relatives are a part of and signed off with his phone number and availability.
Nancy emailed him back the next day. Her writing has a great voice. She said everything a mournful relative would be expected to, and she surprised him by mentioning she lives in Loveland, Colorado, is downsizing, and is looking for a place to store a family heirloom bed frame made by Sammy’s great-grand uncle, Sam Bennett.
In his community, Sam was a well-known carpenter. The maple and black walnut bed frame he made in the late 1800s features four cannonball-style posts and a gun barrel-style quilt banner. Nancy grew up sleeping on that bed frame, just like I grew up sleeping in my great-grandmother’s iron bed frame. It wouldn’t fit in her and her husband’s new senior condo, and she was hoping someone in Maryland or Pennsylvania could keep it in the family. This wasn’t something that would get donated to the nearest thrift shop.
Delighted with this news, Uncle Sammy sent the email to my mom, and my mom forwarded Nancy’s email to me.
“So, this lady, Nancy, is Mom’s cousin,” my mom wrote. “She went to school with Mom’s younger brother, Vic. She lives in Loveland, and she’s downsizing. She describes a bed that needs a home- it was made by my Granny’s mom’s uncle- so, gosh, your great-great-great uncle? Lol- it would be AWESOME if you and Dan could grab it .. maybe this summer.. I’m sure there’s no real rush. Anyway- here is the email. Sent from my iPhone”
Loveland?! I thought. My mom’s house is 36 hours away; that city is a mere five hours’ drive. I have a relative in Colorado? I have a secret grandma? She has an important bed frame, and I have a bunkhouse it can live in? For real?
My relationship with Granny was odd. Thankfully, it was far less tumultuous than my mom’s relationship with her. Watching their dynamic made me grateful for me and my mom’s friendship even during my childhood. Granny wasn’t exactly the type of grandma who’d love you unconditionally; she’d bake you cookies, and they were good cookies, but you’d have to tolerate a steady flow of criticisms about every life choice you ever made while you ate them.
My relationship with my dad’s mom is even more atypical, especially since my parent’s divorce. Mama Blanca is an exceptional human but no DNA evidence places her within the taxonomic family Grandiformes, where the Common Grandmother (Grandmotherus commonii) is located. Given my experience with both ends of the grandma continuum, I’ve longed for an older relative who exists in the middle.
Could Nancy be in the middle? Is she nice? Will she treat me like family? It sucks that I even have to consider these questions.
As a result, I felt nervous about Nancy’s arrival. I had utterly no idea what type of person to expect. Not that I wanted to expect a type of person; I just hoped she’d be kind. And maybe have cookies.
To quell my stupid anxious thoughts, I invited my brother over to meet her, too. He lives in town and could be at my house in 20 minutes. Thrilled, he accepted the invitation and decided to come over early to help clean the irrigation ditches. Well, alright then, Nancy gets to meet two out of the three of us. Also, many hands make light work or something like that.
Nancy and her husband, Ed, rolled their neighbor’s 4Runner down the gravel driveway around 1 o’clock. The boys set their Coors Banquets down and we lined up to greet them.
She looks like Granny.
“Well, this place is gorgeous!” she said. They’d never been in this part of the state in early spring, and the snow-capped peaks took their breath away on the drive down.
We checked off some obligatory statements. I’m Gabby, this is my brother, Marco. How was the drive, what about lunch?
So… who are you?
There was no sense of judgment. No negative energy. Not a single subtle complaint snuck through their lips for the hour and a half visit. Nancy even said the word “damn.” Goodness, these relatives were intelligent, witty, thoughtful, curious, beautiful. Over that brief period, the conversation slid around between their trips abroad to Colorado in the 70s to a Pennsylvanian one-room schoolhouse to their six RAGBRAI adventures to the elk near their house and back to the bed frame.
“We tried to get the bed frame into our Tesla, but it was too big by one inch,” she said. “So we traded cars with our neighbor for the day. They were thrilled about taking the Tesla.” So hip, these two are. “It used to be green, but I stripped that paint off a few years ago, and that’s when I discovered it was maple and black walnut. I should’ve done it sooner. It’s much more beautiful now.”
The four hand-carved components were gently stacked against the south wall in the bunkhouse. The wood was smooth and perfect, and its shine caught the sun pouring through the single window. No way great great great uncle Sam ever thought his wood would cross the Mississippi and find a resting place on the western side of the Continental Divide.
If wood could talk.
“Do you know about Aunt Leah and her quilts?” Nancy asked me. “She’d always gift newlyweds a quilt.” I do, I said, I even have one inside. “Well, would you like another? We brought this one for you, too.”
Leah’s quilts are precious. There are many of them in the family, which is wild to me. That lady must’ve quilted her butt off. My mom gave me a premature wedding gift after Granny died; Leah’s hand stitching is remarkable, and her patterns and fabrics are playful and detailed. As Nancy put another one into my arms, I noticed this one was covered in horses. A sign; I’ve had a lifelong obsession with horses. It didn’t have the little “Specially Hand Made by Aunt Leah” tag sewn onto it; she must’ve made it before she ordered custom tags for her quilts.
Quilts and bed frames are better than cookies.
When Nancy and Ed left, my brother and I grinned in disbelief. Laughter burst out, hands ran through dusty, windswept hair. Leather gloves went back on hands and we raked junk out of the ditchline for several more hours while the old frame rested after its long journey.
Just beautiful, Gabby. Typing this through tears, so I hope the spelling is correct!