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Show If there was just one “redo” I could have, however, it would be to go back in time and ask all of the questions that I have had, throughout my life, about my mother's mother's death. I didn't ask the questions even after my mom herself was diagnosed with cancer for fear that it would give voice to the unconscionable possibility that she might be dying. Fat lot of good that did me. The moral of that story is “don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today”, or “make hay while ie sun shines”, whichever you prefer. I have been able to flesh out the skeleton of facts about this event to some degree with help from my aunt and grandfather. It’ s the blank emotional history that keeps me awake at night. (Just to reassure you, I am using that phrase merely as a figure of speech.) Dinner nightly at 5:30 Call for reservations 92 E. CENTER STREET 435.259-4295 state liquor license My mother's mother, Marjorie, died of Hodgkin's disease in 1945, when my mother was ten years old. She was diagnosed in 1942, when the family was living in Florida while my grandfather supervised the transition of a series of resort hotels that were "Don't just tell me what happened,” I would implore. "Tell me how you felt, tell me what you thought." J commandeered by the Army Air Corps for barracks. In the way that children remember odd facts, | remember my mother telling me that it was my grandfather who taught her how to make white sauce in the months following Marjorie's death. (At the time, this struck me as incongruous with the strict person I knew him to be, not to mention the fact that I never saw him cook except on the hibachi. He has, however, always offered plenty of advice for those of us who do slave over a hot stove, but those are my own stories to be told later.) I don't remember precisely when I learned that Marjorie died when my mother was little. I remember thinking it was sad because by the time I heard the story, a cure for Hodgkin's disease had been found. I remember being glad that my mother had ‘another’ mother--my grandmother, Elizabeth, my grandfather's second wife, whom she called “Mother” and “Ma”—who ANOTHER F, A ENDOR SEMENT PATRICIA raised my mother, her sister, Alida, and new baby, Elizabeth equally as her own. Later, when | realized my mother was not the toddler I had always envisioned her to be when her mother died, I felt. mostly relief that she indeed had ‘another’ mother, which Elizabeth truly was. I had some questions but she didn't seem to dwell on the tragedy, so I didn't feel I could. I also felt as though asking questions about my grandmother, Marjorie would be disloyal to my grandmother, Elizabeth; that it would cast her as second best. Contrary to that feeling, my Aunt Elizabeth says that my grandmother was always very forthcoming about other from boarding found a photograph spirits and wit, and together. I wish I'd : “Fitcho”, as Marjorie was nicknamed, because they knew “THE BEST RESTAURANT IN SOUTHERN Salt Lake Magazine UTAH" each school and college-indeed were good friends. In recent years | of the two of them, which seems to capture their individual high clearly reveals their friendship. I dearly wish I had known them had the courage to ask. [Re our me a in ae anest rors Fin aic ©alu ore ‘To ask what? To ask my grandmother what Marjorie was like as a person, what their friendship was like. To ask her what it was like to take on two young girls as daughters. To ask my mother what she remembered of her first mother, what she | remembered of her illness, her death, the following darkness that I can only imagine consumed the coming months. To ask what she thought when her father remarried, when she was moved from Riverdale, New York to tiny Elizabethtown in the Adirondacks. To ask if she was excited when the new baby sister arrived--I certainly longed for a sibling, albeit a brother, after my parents were married. I have any number of questions. I will never gain answers to many of these questions, but I do not want to completely lose my grandmother Marjorie to history, nor that era of my mother's life. In the finest tradition of my family I can't dwell in the past—although it makes for great martyrdom. I'll just have to buck up and make the most of what I can learn now. And then remember to pass it on as completely as possible, as my - 101 NORTH MAIN STREET é¢ We are Moab's Breakfast Place, : we serve only breakfast and we're very good at it. 7 am to 12 noon Weekdays Saturday & Sunday, until 1 interpretation, with my nuances, since that is the best that I can do. 1471 Main St. Desert Plaza | 259.7735 ARCHES REALTY 180 EAST CENTER ST. P.O. BOX 537 MOAB, UT 84532 family hairstvling COLDWCLL BANKCR © O-P:] IGINALS Cc ' CREATIVE NAIL DESIGN. We use the Aue listing system in Moab, so I can help you with any property regardless of the agency it ts listed with. |