A Legacy of Love and Laughter

This lovely lady is my grandmother, Lucille Metcalf, who passed away suddenly last week at the age of 90. Yes, 90. And this photo is from only one year ago. Needless to say, she was a remarkable woman.

Even aside from the "grandmother stuff," she was remarkable. Born in 1930, she was part of a generation where women were expected to get married young, have a bunch of children, and not work unless they were a nurse, secretary, or teacher prior to marrying and having children. Lucille was having none of that. She earned not only a bachelor's degree but a masters degree in Religious Education. She served as the Director of Christian Education for a church in Augusta, Maine. She was a City Missionary with the Baptist City Mission Society in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the Executive Director of the Greater Lynn Council of Churches. 

She did eventually marry, at the unusually advanced age of 36 (I say that VERY tongue in cheek, as I was married at the even more advanced age of 39), to my grandfather, a widower who was  significantly older than she and who had a grown son and a grandchild. 

Marriage certainly did not change her independent and stubborn streak, either. She had a heart attack at a relatively young age, and immediately took up walking to get her health back. Her walking club stopped recording mileage when she hit 11,000 miles, but considering that she continued walking several times a week for 18 more years, it's safe to say she probably hit 20,000 miles or more. And when her cholesterol levels didn't drop the way she wanted even with all that exercise, she became a vegetarian, but in her typical gracious fashion, she continued to cook for carnivorous guests and insisted on bringing her own main dish whenever she was a guest, so as not to make extra work for her hosts.  

Although she never had children of her own, she embraced the role of grandmother to my older sister and myself with great enthusiasm. I think I was about 10 before it even occurred to me that she was not, in fact, my father's biological mother. She had, after all, been married to my grandfather by the time I was born, so she was the only grandmother on that side that I had ever known. Of course, I had seen photographs of my biological grandmother, and I'd certainly heard stories, but somehow my brain never made the logical inference that someone else had been there first. Some people call their grandmothers "Grandma," some call them "Bubbe" or "Nana" or "Bammy;" I called mine "Auntie Lu." She was just my grandmother, full stop. 

When I think of memories of Auntie Lu, I think not of long stories or major events, but of little moments. The time I stayed overnight at her house and she baked popovers for breakfast. Going to the trailer at my grandparents' campsite and her showing me how to use the hand pump to make the water flow in the bathroom sink. The way she carefully set aside portions of a main dish she was making for my dad and me before adding mushrooms. The Christmas she knit me dozens of tiny and exquisite Barbie clothes. Her beautiful, graceful handwriting on dozens of birthday cards. How proud she was when she set up her computer and taught herself to use email and the internet. My grandparents' pet parakeet, Parker, who spoke in Lu's voice but who never quite mastered "Merry Christmas," instead cheerfully wishing all holiday visitors a "Merry Chris!" Her Siamese cats, Charlie with the crooked tail and Molly who had an inordinate fondness for ice cream and a surprisingly possessive attitude toward the clothes dryer. Lu's elegant Brahmin pronunciation of the name "Met-cahf."

Auntie Lu was very proper, very much a lady, but she was never stuffy. She had a witty and occasionally rather wicked sense of humor. My husband looked forward to exchanging witty barbs with her at every visit, with good-natured teasing and bantering going both ways. One of her favorite possessions in her later years was a Teddy Ruxpin doll that would respond to vocal commands with yawns, laughs, and funny comments that always resulted in guffaws from Lu. When my children were born, she delighted in making Teddy do his tricks for them.

She reveled in being a great-grandmother just as much as she reveled in being a grandmother. She was always a tiny, petite little thing, and the first time she held my unusually large firstborn (affectionately referred to in the family as a "bag of sand"), I was afraid he would crush her. But she adored him, and he adored her right back. 

And when my daughter joined the clan, it was just as much of a mutual admiration society.

And as they grew older, that admiration never waned. 

Visits with or to Auntie Lu were always something to look forward to. The kids loved telling her about what was going on in their lives, and she loved hearing about it. She loved her family, and we loved her right back.

 

But beyond family, Lu loved all those around her. Her neighbors. Her knitters. Her walkers. Her church family. All who met her were touched by her grace, her humor, her zest for life. She touched so many lives. She left the world a better place than she found it. May we all leave such a blessed legacy of love and laughter on this earth.