Aquarius Blue (re-posting)

The last of three re-postings from a previous blog.

AQUARIUS BLUE Feb 4 2013

If I am lucky enough to glimpse the bare, unclouded sky at this time of the year, I always think it is "Aquarius Blue".  It goes with the first secret signs of Spring that show around Imbolc or Candlemas (or Groundhog Day, depending on your orientation). A few days ago I was delighted to see teeny tiny buds on some trees during my park-walk with Johnny. When the Sun returns to these degrees of Aquarius, there are many hopeful omens for those who have the eyes to see!

Today is my grandmother's birthday. Her eyes were crystal blue, like sparkling star-sapphires, Aquarius blue. She's long gone from this world, yet I still celebrate her birthday. I try to do something I think she would enjoy, which is usually baking something fruity and sweet. Today I made a blueberry pie-cake, baked in the big brown ceramic pie pan that was once hers. I didn't get much passed on to me when she died, since my sister immediately took over her house and everything in it, and we were not on good terms at the time. Now we've both gotten over it, whatever it was, and we're as close as sisters should be. Last Fall she gave me this pie pan. I've been using it constantly ever since. It's like having Nana at the table with us again.

She was a strong and gentle woman who was like a mother to me until I was about 12. We lived with her and my grandfather until my mother suddenly decided that she wanted her own house, and we moved. Just as suddenly, my mother also decided to play the part of a mother for a change. It didn't work out very well, which was no surprise. I'll always think of Nana in the role of a mother because she was there first, last and always. She tolerated and stood beside me during  my teenage rebellion stage when my actual mother simply retreated in fear and disgust. She forgave my young-adult transgressions against the family and stayed close to me when my parents refused to have anything to do with me. She always had something kind to say to me, something pleasant to share, and if all else failed there was something good to eat waiting for me whenever I got home to her house.

Her tolerance, strength and gentleness, I think, must have come from raising her younger brother and running their household, a duty that fell on her when she was barely into her mid-teens and her mother passed away. Her father was a hard drinking immigrant coal miner who apparently spoke better Czech and German than English. All I can remember about him is playing with his pocket watch and chain while I sat on his lap. The early photos of my grandmother show a stocky, tall woman with wire rimmed glasses, wavy blonde hair and a rather wistful, wishful little smile dimpling her pale face.

No wonder she charmed my Irish grandfather and they married as soon as he got back from WWI and secured a good job with the railroad.  He was ten years her senior and worldly-wise, having come over from Belfast as a child with his parents, four younger brothers and three sisters. Soon his parents were gone and he had to support the family however he could, odd labor jobs and farm work around the rural edges of Pittsburgh. By the time they were all grown up, he went off to serve in WWI. He toured Europe as a soldier, eventually put in charge of black smithing and tending the horses, which were an essential part of the armed forces in those days. When the war ended he came back alive, unlike two of his brothers, and he celebrated by marrying his beloved Gertrude. He went to live with her, her father, and her brother in the house where my sister lives now, just around the corner from my current home.

It was anything but domestic bliss. The old man hated "the Irishman" and fistfights were not uncommon. My grandmother patiently cleaned up after them. Her brother, Ernest, escaped by getting married and moving as far away as he could, which turned out to be Pasadena, where he lived to a ripe old age. Things calmed down a little after my dad was born. Eventually the old man drank himself to death in the early 1950s. One more thing I remember about him. I went toddling around the funeral home, whispering and shushing people, telling them Papa was sleeping. I really thought he was, and that's probably what they told me, since I was too little to understand.

Everybody loved my grandmother. She was universally cherished. She was a kind person without being overly religious. Yes, she went to church and was active in the Presbyterian congregation but I always had the feeling that it was just another way for her to find good things to do for others. Her kindness seemed to overflow into everything around her. She especially loved going to candlelight services on Christmas Eve and I can still see her carrying her candle home, beaming with childlike joy as she walked briskly up the hill shielding the little flame with her gloved hand. Then when she got home,  there would be candles lit from it. It was the only time she allowed candles burning in the house. By magical candlelight, plates of cookies and kolaches would appear, and soon the aunts (my grandfather's sisters) would come over to make a big fuss over my sister and I to fill in the time until we went to bed and they could decorate the tree and lay out the presents.

I still miss her at Christmastime. I used to think, with her white hair and twinkling blue eyes, that she might be Mrs. Santa Claus in secret, even though I knew my grandfather certainly was too grumpy to be Santa himself.

The day before she died, as she laid in her hospital bed, I brushed out that white hair and pinned it neatly away from her face just the way she liked it, using little combs to fix it in place, old-country style. Her eyes were sparkling blue as ever and I marveled at how beautiful she looked for a woman of 83.

Happy Birthday, Nana! What would you think of the world today? I like to think that your Aquarian nature would somehow adapt and find a niche here, no matter what.

You live on in my heart.