Saying Goodbye

Today we held a memorial service for my grandmother, who passed away recently at the age of 97.  I had the honor of speaking at her service today.  Most of you did not know my grandmother, but a few did, and I wanted to share my memories of her here. Mostly, I just wanted a little part of who she was to be preserved on the Internet forever.  She was a special lady, and I miss her greatly.

One of my favorite memories of my grandmother is also my first memory of her.  It was a trip to The Old Spaghetti Factory in Portland.  I was probably about four years old.  As most young kids do at restaurants, I got fidgety, and my mom took me to look out the windows at the river.  Wanting a better look, I ran to the door and pushed it open.  It was an emergency exit, and triggered the fire alarm when opened. The noise it made was horrible, and every single person in the restaurant stopped eating and looked directly at me.  I burst into tears in embarrassment.  Dorrie was there waiting for me at the table, telling me she didn’t know what all the fuss was about.  “I thought it was just a noisy ceiling fan,” she said, as she gave me a hug.  Even at that young age, I knew there was no way she could have thought that, but that was Dorrie.  She would do whatever was needed for her grandkids, and we all knew that.  She encouraged us to be kind, thoughtful, and generous.  Whenever our grandparents would give us some money as a gift, to celebrate a birthday, anniversary, Christmas, or the purchase of our first house, we all knew we were to come visit them afterwards to explain how we spent the money.  Those conversations were some of the most meaningful we had with her, when we would report back that we had spent the money on an extra car payment, or donated the money to an organization important to us, or used it to provide her great-grandchildren with an enriching experience or opportunity.  She inspired us to want to be better people.  She inspired us to want to be like her. 

Her generosity of time and spirit were not limited to her family. In the past few years, she organized a Flag Day parade on Van Buren Street for the children on the street.  She even got the city to fill in some potholes ahead of time, so the kids on their bikes, and trikes, or in strollers and wagons, would have a smoother ride.  She made a point to get to know all the kids personally as well.

When I started college at Oregon State, she made it a point to get to know my roommates and friends. My grandparents routinely invited all of us over for breakfast on the weekends. None of us ever left hungry, which is pretty remarkable for any gathering of males in their late teens and early twenties.  Even when we said “no thank you” to another stack of pancakes, one would appear anyways. Looking back, I think it may have been less about making sure we were well fed, and more about spending more time talking to us, learning about how our studies were going and what we were interested in.  I remember one time my roommate and I were over during football season.  It was the year 2000, and Oregon State was undefeated and had a big game coming up against U-Dub.  We were talking about how we were thinking about driving up for the game.  Dorrie got right up from the table, made a phone call, comes back and said “I’ve got two tickets for you guys.  Enjoy!” It was then I learned that she still had her mother’s season tickets to the Huskies, which she purchased every year for a friend in Seattle to use.  Her friend was all too happy to give up tickets to the biggest game of the season for her grandkid.  That game ended up being one of the best games I’ve ever seen in person, and I got to see it from incredible seats right on the fifty-yard line. 

Even into her nineties, Dorrie was young at heart, and still as fun as ever.  After my family took a cross-country train trip this past Christmas, she lit up as she told me about her own train travels cross-country seventy years ago.  I swear she remembered more details about her trips than I remembered about mine just a week ago.  My cousins Sally and Wendy were able to borrow a convertible every year on her birthday to give her a ride around.  Wendy would drive her around, while Sally would organize neighbors on the street to come outside and wave, because, as Dorrie would say, “what fun is it to ride in a convertible if there’s nobody to wave at?” Just this past football season, she attended her very first “tailgate,” enjoying some grilled meats with four generations of her family.  When we tried to find a golf cart to help escort her into the stadium, we could only find one guy who said he couldn’t help because he had to get transport the coaches into the game.  Upon hearing this, Dorrie remarked, “I don’t mind if they ride with me.”  A few days before she died, she left a voicemail on my phone telling me that I “didn’t do a  good job cheering on the Beavs” in the Civil War basketball game, and that I needed to “do better next time.”

Dorrie adored visits from her eleven great-grandchildren, and it was very special for me to see my children and their cousins play card games like “Touring” while eating her legendary applesauce popscicles and read The Poky Little Puppy, just as we all did thirty years ago, and probably just like our moms did sixty years ago. 

Dorrie was always just “Dorrie” to us – she never wanted us to call her grandma.  We may have never called her grandma, but she was a grandma in the best sense of the word, and someone that all of us were so fortunate to have in our lives for so long. It’s such a blessing to see her influence in the way my mom and my aunt interact with their grandchildren, and I know that, when the day comes for all of us to become grandparents, we will be well equipped to assume that role thanks to Butch and Dorrie.