Becoming a Family Storyteller

For many of us, Christmas is a time when we remember loved ones now gone and sift through our favorite recollections about them. After my parents’ deaths almost a decade ago, I stumbled upon a way to ensure that grandchildren and great-grandchildren alike would have greater access to my “Mimi” and “Papa” memory vault, stored away in my basement. Each December, I undertake a one-woman archaeological dig. Slipping on an old sweatshirt and jeans, I descend the steep stairs into our storage room: it’s dusty, dark and quiet. There, I crouch over large boxes I’ve marked with my parents’ names. My enthusiasm grows as I begin delving for treasure.

Through the seventy-one years of their marriage, my parents accumulated enough tchotchkes, religious paraphernalia, and junk-drawer artifacts to guarantee that there would be enough of them to last, at least, until the end of my life. Hidden away in shoe boxes within these cartons are hundreds of small items—“little somethings” as my mother would have called them—most wrapped in newspaper, each with its own memory. I rummage only for evocative objects that can be hooked to strong stories: the yarns that anyone older in the family might recall as a way of recapturing some aspect of these two beloved people. I polish up both the trinkets and the tales—and then offer them to the bevy of descendants I welcome into our home at the holiday. In the third act of my life, I have discovered my role as our family’s storyteller.

Were it not for this year’s COVID restrictions, my excavation in the basement would be well underway. However, I have not even touched the cardboard containers, because my husband and I believe it is not safe for all of us to gather for the brunch that we ordinarily host each Christmas Eve day. There will be no grab bag around the tree to provide the second and third generation with new memories. Instead, this December, I am riffling through the pages of the scrapbook in my mind: past holiday get-togethers and also a special, not-so-long-ago gathering with its discovery of a truly one-of-a-kind “something.”

“Who can guess what Mimi said she valued most in life?” I’d asked the assembled group as I chose a treasure envelope from my large shopping bag. The answers rang out:

“Her health!”

“Papa!”

“Her dog!”

Good answers. But wrong, wrong, wrong. “Any more guesses?” I’d pressed.

“Her kids!” shouted my young grand-nephew. His answer drew bellows of laughter from those of us who remembered Mimi better.

“He thinks she was like that mother in ‘The Waltons,’” my brother offered in a wry tone. “Stop watching sappy reruns, Jamie. Mimi liked to jump in that old Chevy of hers and hightail it away from us anytime she got the chance.”

Jamie’s next guess was the car itself, and that was closer but still not quite on the money. Suddenly, a bright-eyed Teagan—all of eleven years old—shouted out “the” answer, bouncing up and down on the sofa in her enthusiasm. “Her license! Her license! Mimi always said she loved to drive. She was going to teach me when I got old enough.” Picking up on Uncle Tommy’s clue, she was the kid who had the right guess. Filled with emotion, it was time to jog the memories of my brothers and sisters, time to let younger family members who didn’t remember their grandmother very well in on the joke. I settled back in my chair and the faces of the youngest grew rapt as they listened to my story. It was better than The Night Before Christmas.

Several years after their “Papa” had gone into a nursing home, I said, I’d finally worked up the nerve to let my stubborn Irish mother know that I wouldn’t be helping her renew her driver’s license that year. A collective gasp, then, from the crowd. Everyone knew—or had been told—that Mimi never took to being challenged. Ever. I then recounted how I’d lost my temper at Grandma’s hard-headedness, and her insistence that she would go crazy if she couldn’t “get out of this damn house.” But at ninety-four and with macular degeneration, she’d become a liability behind the wheel: she couldn’t convince me to drive her to the DMV. I didn’t need to describe her explosive response to my answer, either: every single one of these kids had witnessed, or been told about, Mimi’s penchant for unleashing a string of blasphemies that would have impressed any sailor when she grew riled.

My mother always ended her rants by blaming whomever had “provoked” her, telling them that they had caused her soul to “land in Hell.” I had never taken responsibility for my Mom’s soul, but I did marvel at her life-long ability to string together swear words with such abandon and, even, with remarkable rhythm.

Not trusting that Mimi, who lived alone, wouldn’t make good on her threat to steal away in her twenty-four-year-old blue Taurus without a valid license, I told the kids how I’d gone back to her house late that same evening, dragging their Uncle Phil along with me. Then, using my spare key, we snuck into the garage where Phil disconnected the car’s battery. Three days later, upon arriving back at Mom’s to take her out to the movies as I had promised, I had peeked first there, wondering if any trail of evidence indicated that Mimi had gotten behind the wheel.

I’d turned on the light. Scattered across the cement floor of the garage was a heap of throw pillows—the ones she always used to sit on to hike herself high enough in the driver’s seat so that she could see over the steering wheel.

Mimi never told me the car wouldn’t start. And I never told her that Phil and I had dropped by to do the dirty work. Phil didn’t reconnect the battery, and as long as I made no mention of selling the car, she didn’t protest very much. It seemed probable that she hadn’t wanted to risk getting herself worked up again after having “taken the Lord’s name in vain” with such voluble emphasis. I reminded the giggling kids in front of me that Mimi was already in overtime by then, and that she knew she had a soul to protect. A soul she needed to keep out of hell.

I am saddened that there will be no archeological dig this year; no opportunity for any of my parents’ forty-three grandchildren and great grandchildren to snag one of the relics stashed among others in my colorful bag. Instead, what I hold onto is this: Teagan’s smile as she declares that she will keep her Mimi’s final driver’s license “forever.”

And there is the promise of next year’s gathering, as well. Already, I am imagining my parents’ spirits hovering, Dad’s behind Mom’s, as more “little-somethings” are bestowed. In my mind, my mother beams. She is tickled by the turnout. And is in no hurry to leave.

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