Mary
“Be good, Krissy. And don’t work too hard.” — Mary B Saviola
My earliest memory of my maternal grandma, I think, is going shopping at a department store in Buffalo. I was in a blue and white dress that had smocking with embroidered flowers across the chest, small puffed sleeves with a tiny white lace trim, ankle socks that also had white lace trim along with a pair of black patent leather Mary Janes. The details of my outfit are only important because that’s how Mary starts most stories — with what she was wearing — and now I’m hard-pressed to remember an important life moment where I don’t know what I had on.
At the department store, she bought me a tiny white paper bag about 1/4 full of chocolate covered raisins from the candy counter in the middle of the store before we started shopping. We went to the sale rack first, of course; another life-long habit formed early. She showed me my size and then we carefully slid each dress, one-by-one, down the rack and inspected it. I can picture her perfectly manicured hand with rings, bracelets and a gold watch delicately moving the girl-sized dresses across the rack.
Mary had soft, gentle hands that lacked the evidence of how much work she did. I guess though, it’s because she always wore gloves. Rubber ones for dishes and cleaning and green and white striped ones when we planted pansies each spring and weeded during the summer. At 103, her hands are just as soft but gnarled with arthritis and draped in impossibly thin, tissue-paper white skin.
Our shopping excursions continued for four decades, mostly without the mary Jane’s and far after candy counters vanished. I am not exaggerating when I say that almost every nice thing I own, Mary bought me. I still wear the mossy green wool coat she got me in 2003 (she’s reinforced the buttons on it for me twice), I use the platter she bought me for my 16th birthday at every holiday (yes, I did have to pick out a china pattern when I turned 16 and holidays gifts after that got way less exciting), and if I could still fit in it, I’d be wearing the white silk suit she bought me twenty years ago (everyone should have a white suit, she said).
In addition to the art of shopping, Mary taught me how to polish silver, iron napkins, set a table and walk with a book on my head. No, I’m not kidding. I spent hours walking through her house and mind with a book on my head while she reminded me to keep my shoulders back, and to “throw my feet straight.” While she recounted, with relief, stories of my aunt Edie’s advancement in graceful walking thanks to ballet classes. She also taught me how to curl my eyelashes and put on lipstick.
I delighted in watching her get ready well into my 20s. And in the earliest memory of her makeup routine I can conjure, I was sitting on the bathroom sink at Brookside Drive and Mary was plucking her eyebrows before she came for mine. I might have been 4 and a half. “It hurts to be beautiful, Krissy.” (It’s funny, she’s always called me Kissy and my brother Nick, “Nicholas” even though no one else does.) Mary’s GRWM routine was was steadfast — face cream, concealer, foundation, powder, blush, eyebrow pencil, curling her eyelashes followed by eye shadow, liner and mascara, and then mixing two different shades of lipstick that each had their own mirrored case. She had a white bristled hairbrush with a thin, yellow curved plastic handle that she’d use on her own curls and then my “banana curls,” wrapping each one carefully around the brush to create a shiny ringlet unburdened by their usual knots.
At my childhood home, we had a swimming pool that I only remember Mary getting into twice, one of which there’s was documented with photos. On both occasions she wore a bathing cap that had three-dimensional flowers and a chin strap that matched her black, white and red bathing suit. I recently found the picture in a box along with another bathing suit clad photo of her at the beach sometimes in the 1940s. It was clear that Mary mastered her bathing suit pose early. One foot slightly in front, a hip tilted lightly higher than the other her hand effortlessly placed on her thin thigh, head held high and eyebrows raised. Sadly, she was born too soon for instagram.
About twenty years ago, Mary and I lived together for a bit while my mom was dying from cancer. I used to joke that there was a special place in heaven for people who lived with a grandparent, but the same can be said, I think, for a grandparent who lives with a 20-something. In that year, her relentless attention drove me nuts. I’d try to sneak out in the morning for the gym and work before she was awake just so we didn’t have to talk about what we’d eat for dinner before I’d even had breakfast. She’d do my laundry while I was at work even though I asked her not to, and put coffee into the load of black clothes because she heard that would keep the black from fading. I never once put on an outfit that she didn’t have a suggestion for improving and she woke me up early every single weekend morning with the sound of her slippers shuffling over the textured hallway tiles to adjust the temperature, which she did multiple times a day. A used to call her Goldilocks because the thermostat was never just right.
I had no idea how much, in hindsight, I’d cherish the time I lived in her house. I learned so much from Mary that was far more important than walking like a soldier. Mary welcomed me, and my friends (and my cat) into her house with open arms. While I lived on Steinway Court, it did feel like my home. I made out with boys while parked in the driveway, or in the living room after she went to bed. And once after an opening of an exhibition I curated when she was out of town taking care of my mom, my drunk friends slept on every soft surface in the house. Some weeknights I’d have friends over and we’d lay on the living room floor in front of the fire talking. Mary would always offer to bring us snacks or a night cap of Grand Mariner after she chatted with us and before retiring to her room to watch a Lifetime movie.
When I’d return for visits, I still used her house as home base. I hosted countless parties and dinners, a bridal shower, and multiple holidays. And after I got married and had kids, she’d happily and graciously let us take over the majority of the house for days at a time. Mary always reminded me that it was my house, too. I miss sharing that space with her.
I’m on my way home now from a visit for her 103rd birthday. I only see her about twice a year now, but we talk on the phone about once a week. I’ve had to make peace that when I call she usually doesn’t know who I am. Our calls now never include gossip or detailed descriptions about new outfits and where we each wore them, or recipes we’ve tried. These days, Mary talks at me about times past and memories from way back when, or sometimes she is too tired to say much at all. Today, she mostly talked about wanting to go back to her childhood home to live with her father.
If I close my eyes, it’s easy to picture her younger self, 80 maybe, vital and bright. The memory brings an easy smile. She is still very put together even past 100. Her hair is curled, her nails are painted bright red, and her skin is remarkably smooth. She’s still so beautiful. I know that my life doesn’t look much like what she pictured, but I hope that I’m making her proud.
