Thanks, Kay.

amanda schlegel

My grandmother can be a handful. If you need proof, then put on your seatbelt because this is going to be a bumpy ride. The course of memory lane ne’er did run smooth. 

My grandmother comes to visit me at least twice a year (though COVID inhibited her, which was a blessing in the form of a plague). Notice that I say grandmother. No, it was never “nana” or “grams” or “Mimi” or even “grandma”: always “grandmother.” She was highbrow in that way. There are many other ways in which she was the perfect model for high society. When I was but six years old, if I used the wrong fork at dinner (of which there were four) I got sent to my room without finishing my meal. I didn’t mind missing dessert, though, to be honest, because it was always something like berries to teach us to “watch our hips.” Grandmother never had an issue watching her hips. She reminds me that she was a slim, cute redhead in college. 

She went to college, but only because my grandfather had gotten her in. They didn’t exactly meet in college though. They met because a cute, redheaded 15-year-old Kay Kuhlman slipped through the window into a black-tie frat party. Back in the day, men had class. Sorry, Sewanee. The music — string quartet of course — stopped as did everyone else in the room to behold the most lovely creature they’d ever seen (or so she tells me). That’s when she saw him: the masters’ student, son of a famous inventor, Jerry Tabern. He had a big nose, but boy was he a sight in a tuxedo. I always imagine him dropping his second glass of whiskey on the rocks when he saw her, but that might be too much of an embellishment. Jerry took Kay home — and when I say “home,” I mean Kay’s home, not Jerry’s because that would be inappropriate — then that was that. They got married only a few months later while Kay was still 15. 

She likes to remind me that she was married successfully at 15 via postcard, phone call, or philosophical conversation about how I’m already 20, still single, and running out of time to snag a good one. On top of that, she now has dementia and forgets that she’s asked me whether or not I have a boyfriend, so she asks at least five times a day when she comes to visit. Thanks, Kay. 

My grandfather never nagged me about things like that. Instead, every conversation with him was an hour-long history lesson cut off only by grandmother calling us to dinner. I despised hearing about the politics of the earliest known civil revolts. I abhorred having to learn how stocks worked. For Christ’s sake, I was 6, Jerry. 

He got taken too soon. His mind was still sharp, and his body was still able. It was a bit of a surprise. What I would give now for just one of his lessons. To smell his coffee — which he always called “yuck” to deter his grandchildren from getting addicted to it — just one more time. I hope the boat to hell, where we are surely both going, is guarded by him in his strapping commodore hat, forcing everyone to ask “permission to come aboard?” before he offers his hand to help us on. I miss how he’d sneak me out for ice cream when I thought grandmother’s berries for dessert were lame. Now, I have to sit through hours and hours of University lectures, but I find them riveting because I imagine him teaching them. He told me that an educated woman is the most dangerous creature. I hope he was right because facing grandmother without him at my side is one of the most dangerous things I’ve done. 

He loved my grandmother. Perhaps it was just because she was the cute redhead all his fraternity brothers wanted, but he cared for her well. Grandmother, on the other hand, always asked him for a diamond. What did she want for Christmas? A diamond. What did she want for her birthday? Probably a bigger diamond. I couldn’t blame her and neither did my grandfather. Despite these pestering qualities, my grandmother knew her stuff. When I was 16, could drive, and started to develop a more ladylike figure, she taught me how to change a tire. You pull over on the side of the road, show a little bit of leg, then if you’re sexy enough, a man will pull over and change the tire for you. Hard work. Where would I be without her? Probably still on the side of the road. My mum taught me how to actually change a tire promptly after this experience. 

I was surprised that she had given me this wisdom because it hinged on my attractiveness luring in a man — something at which I am clearly inept. At my graduation, we sat around a table looking at my senior photos. “Who is that?” my grandmother asked me. Silly grandmother, that’s me. Her eyes jumped back toward me as she looked me over once, twice, before laughing. “That’s not you. The person in these photos is sexy!” Thanks, Kay. She then took the opportunity to remind me that she was a petite redhead when she was younger. My sister stood just behind her mouthing the speech word-for-word like they do in the movies. I thanked God for just a moment that my sister was older than me and also unmarried. My grandmother had given up hope on her though since she wore yoga pants and her hair was fluorescent purple. “Are you a prostitute? I’m sure it can be a somewhat noble profession if you’re into that sort of thing,” she said right before the light left her eyes. She realized she would get no grandchildren from my sister and she also realized how many more lessons she had to instill upon me. 

If I had to condense all of her cotillion-worthy lessons into a single experience, it would be a conversation we had over a game of backgammon (of which I won). “I didn’t always have it easy, you know,” she told me. Instead of looking at my next move on the board, I eyed her Valentina coat while her maid brought us strawberries for dessert, “My parents raised me on a farm and I had to trudge miles through the snow each winter to get to school.” I would have sympathized with her, but this was directly after a conversation in which she informed me that if my future husband doesn’t have a yacht, then she doesn’t want him as a grandson-in-law. I’m sort of hoping she dies before I get married, but if she lives too much longer, she will just nag me more about how I’m still not married. We’ll see how this one goes. 

Kay would appreciate you all listening to this story. It is one that she has always wanted to be told, though she would have wanted it without my commentary. Though she told me that sarcasm is never attractive in a woman, Jane Austen would like to say otherwise. I wouldn’t trade her for the world. She has pushed me to be better and has shown me what true love can be like. For that, I’ll never forget her. I’ll also never forget that I’m in her will. Thanks, Kay.