Travels in a Trunk

She always kept me thinking!  You never new what to expect out of her mouth, and it was either profound enough that you better listen, or it was something to throw you completely off guard.  Even IF you were a little tyke.

Who is She, you say?  She, is my very favorite person ever.  My Gram.  She had a sense of humor that sometimes I think shocked even her.  She said things that some people only think!  She loved loved loved to catch people, even and sometimes mostly children, off guard.  Tilly.  Florency.  Ma.  Gram.  Thats her.  

Large in stature, as typical of an old german frau.  She would put us on her lap and sing to us in german.  She would bounce us on her knee and say patty cake in german.  She would say to me, "Lynnie Annie, I'm so german I have saurkraut hanging out my ass."  Take that as a little tyke - oh the visual.  She cooked like the german frau, and she cleaned like the german frau, and she loved that way too.  She wore house dresses, and bobby socks, and tennies, and aprons.  Aprons that were held together by safety pins, with pockets filled with snotrags (her term), and food stains identifying that she often missed her mouth when she ate!  A memory of her burned in all of our brains, was her missing her mouth, food landing on the apron, and her taking her spoon- scraping it off - and trying a second time.  Oh Tilly.  

I had the good pleasure of spending a great deal of time with her and grampa in my youth.  What great memories I have!  I would follow her around like a shadow and admire her in everything she did.  One day I followed her "up the wooden hill"- the stairs - to put some things away.  She pulled out this enormous trunk (probably wasnt that huge but as a child it seemed so!) to tuck some things away, and grabbed me by my little face and said, "Lynnie Annie, this is the trunk my mom and dad sent me to the United States in from Germany."  WOWZA.  She repeated that story oftentimes as I would follow her up that wooden hill.  She would tell me that with her sweet smile, and her giggle that I miss so much.

I never questioned her heritage.  The daughter of Emma and Hans Jacobs, with somewhere around 7 - 9 siblings, I heard often of how they grew up and how they only spoke german.  I never met them, and only met one or two of the siblings.  Gram spoke german, sang german, cooked german, and told me she came over the water by trunk.  Who is to question that?

It wasn't until I was a mom myself, and sitting with her and a few of my aunts at the kitchen table, that I found out that she never traveled in a trunk!!  I, in my innocence, made mention of the trunk in front of the aunts - AND Gram.  She got her giggle on, and her sheepish woopsy I got caught look, and released the truth because if she didn't the aunts would!

Both of her parents came over to America from Germany - dad first, mom sometime later.  She was born in the US of A on american soil - has never ever never even set foot in Germany!!!!!  Oh did we laugh!!  My two aunts - who know her well - got that deer in the headlights look at first when she spilled her guts - and then cracked up!!

I had forgotten all about this some 30+ years later, when in conversation with my dad (her son) about an up and coming trip to Europe for me.  We began talking about heritage, and my birth in Germany, and how in all actuality I was more german than my gram ever hoped to be as I was born there!!  It brought back that memory and I started laughing and laughing and laughing.  My dad had no idea what was so funny!  I began to tell him the story about his mom, the trunk, and the truth.  Oh did he get a big kick out of that!!   

Today I wish I had that ole trunk.  It would make me smile every time I looked at it!  I can only hope and pray that 50+ years after my grandbabies are born, whether I'm dead or alive, they remember me with such sheer enjoyment,  I can only hope that when they remember me it is with a smile on their lips and a warmth in their heart.  I can only hope that I have the diligence to purpose those moments in their lives that will lend to memories that they love reflecting on, and plenty of them so on a really bad terrible horrible day - some thing simple - something so off the wall - will evoke a memory in them that will take them back to a place where trouble didn't exist - it was sheer enjoyment, love, mixed with a bit of quirkiness - like travels in a trunk.