Tiggy

Our last stop on our trip back east was visiting my grandmother, Marjorie "Marge" Dearnley Helmetag, or, as her grandchildren and great-grandchildren call her, Tiggy. Tiggy is almost ninety-one years old. When I worry about her getting old, I always pause and consider her best friend and nightly dinner companion, Helen, who is over one hundred, and Tiggy's mother, who lived to be one hundred and four. Compared to them, Tiggy's still in the spring of her "old age" years.

I also consider her laugh, which is contagious and bubbles up quickly to the surface. Tiggy disproves the myth that old age turns people cranky and humorless. It's probably a good thing she had that sense of humor over the years. She had three sons who, even in their sixties, are some of the most energetic people I know. (On Thanksgiving at our house in Vermont, there was never any belly scratching in front of a football game. My uncles and dad would have us out and about -- first on a hike, then playing tennis, then playing golf or, if the Vermont snow and ice came early, skating and skiing. We'd finally collapse into the turkey dinner at the end of the day, only to have my uncle Keith announce that it was time for us all to go bowling. Which of course we all did.)

I wish that Tiggy lived closer. I know that she would delight in the girls' piano recitals and soccer games and just seeing us on a more regular basis. But I am thankful that we do have our summer visits. She's the only grandparent on my side that all the girls have met (Tiggy's husband, Pop Pop, died when I was twelve and my mom's parents died when Evie was still a baby) and it's important for me that they know her. From this summer, they have memories of dancing around her apartment with Pop Pop's old canes, eating key lime pie (seriously, the best I've ever tasted), looking through old photographs, and splashing in the pool with Tiggy watching.

I wonder what memories they will carry with them throughout the years. When I think of Tiggy's mom, I remember the blue and green floral print of one of her dresses, the pastel candies she always offered us in her apartment, and that she told me she had decided to only eat chocolate ice cream and french fries after she turned one hundred because, why not? When I think of Pop Pop, I think of his quirky sense of humor and how he always laughed about these skinny "Rabbity Rabbit" dolls they gave us for Christmas. I picture him in their house in Chestnut Hill, surrounded by the antiques he loved to collect, the house full of people, all drinking cocktails in crystal glasses. It's sad to think of whole people reduced to a handful of memories, but there are lessons even in those handfuls. Lessons about appreciating what you love and keeping a sense of humor and surrounding yourself with friends and family.

Hopefully there is still plenty of time for the girls to create more memories with their great-grandmother. We'll be back again next summer, ready for more key lime pie.