Write On

From the time I can remember, up until my teenage years, summers meant packing my belongings into an old grey suitcase which either my dad or mom hauled into the trunk of our old Volvo or the back of our family van. Then my siblings and I took a four-hour trip from Atlanta, Georgia, to Virginia, alternating between playing car games, bickering, and spilling food from packed lunches. We’d go to our grandparents Williams in the state capitol, Columbia, for a few weeks, and after that, Granddaddy Williams would drive us to see our Grandmother Simmons in Summerville, a town forty miles from Charleston. We’d stay there until either my mom or dad arrived to bring us back home, just in time for a flurry of back-to-school preparations.

So much has changed since those days. My Williams grandparents are gone, lost when I was in my late teens and early twenties. My memories of Granddaddy Simmons are few— he died when I was a child. My siblings live in different parts of the country—my brother is in Texas, my sister in Florida. But the one constant in my life has been my Grandmother Simmons Suddeth, who still lives in the same house where I spent so much time, a big, brown house in Summerville South Carolina.

A few weeks ago, I visited, and doing so revived memories. It used to be that my grandmother cared for my siblings and I when we spent time at her home. She made sure we ate our oatmeal, and that we didn’t stay up too late. This time, my sister and I helped our aunt prepare her meals and ready her for bed. Though Grandmother, at 97, has declined physically, her memories are still there— she can remember the intricacies of an expansive family tree, even the color of the house she grew up in (green). She can remember being the age of my nephew, Lawrence, who accompanied us. He’s a bouncy eight years old, and grandmother remembers playing made-up games in her family’s cornfield with the same enthusiasm he shows for Minecraft. She remembers her teenage years in New York, where her family moved—they, like millions of others, were part of the Great Migration. And she recalls her young adulthood back in Summerville. She returned to her hometown and stayed when she met my grandfather. Gladys Simmons Suddeth outlived my grandfather, remarrying in her sixties and outliving her second husband. She’s faced the losses of two children and a grandchild. In turn, she has delighted over the faces of more than a dozen great-grandchildren.

Visiting my grandmother made me think of books that speak to aging and spending time with elders. Ladysitting: My Year With Nana At the End of Her Century, by Philadelphia author Lorene Cary is one such work. Like my grandmother, Cary’s Nana held onto a fiery sense of independence, even as she needed more care. Just as she’s held tight to her memories, Gladys Simmons Suddeth hasn’t lost an iota of personality. She is at turns charming, at turns firmly opinionated, even stern, just as I remember her from childhood.

My grandmother has always been gracious and social, a consummate Southern lady with her church community and her vast knowledge of family history and connections. When we were kids, my siblings and I would be swept on a whirlwind of visits, first to our great-grandmother’s home across the street, and then to house after house in Summerville, visiting some great-aunt or second cousin or another, sitting in living room after living room while my grandmother coaxed us into polite conversation. On my to-read list is a fictional piece about someone very different, an elderly curmudgeon, the titular character of A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. Described as “a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul,” this book’s blurb has me hooked, especially with my background in dealing with all three of these things.
I’ve also been thinking back to a novel I read almost two decades ago, Century’s Son, by Robert Boswell. It’s a timeless story nevertheless: a couple in a loveless marriage whose lives are made more interesting by the care of the wife, Zhenya’s, elderly father: a Russian dissident with wild stories which may or may not be true. With the novel told from multiple points of view, I still remember the characters vividly, although I haven’t picked up this book in years.

It’s just the way my mind can conjure my Williams grandparents so clearly— their expressions, the sounds of their voices— and how I recall the chores and church services my Grandmother Simmons had me tending to during my childhood days. I might have been exasperated then, even as I loved my grandmother. But now, with even greater love comes a softening, an appreciation, and an understanding. It was an honor to care for my grandmother, even for just a few days. One day it will be an honor to remember.