We All Wore Pink

A Grandma Post-pink rose

We laid Leona Richards Kelly Post to her eternal rest on a breeze-swept grassy hill overlooking the Mohawk Valley this morning, just a few weeks shy of her 96th birthday. She was Sean's father's mother, so my grandma-in-law and T's great-grandma. Sean has now entered the stage of life of having no living grandparents, one I arrived at nearly three decades ago. It had been a long grandparent-less haul, losing them all by the time I had barely graduated from college, so having someone to call Grandma again was a gift I treasured, and the gift was all the more special for the person Grandma Post was.

Grandma did not live an easy life. She was widowed for the first time after only five years of marriage, left with two young boys -- one a toddler -- to raise alone, in a time when that was a rarity, and there was little social support for single, struggling mothers. I once asked her how she managed, as we watched T running around the rehabilitation home lounge, crawling under tables and climbing on chairs, and she just waved her hand and smiled. This was after her stroke, so words mostly eluded her, and there may have been more she wanted to say, but it seemed like she was telling me, "You take what life gives you and you get through it." But I do really wonder how she did it.

She remarried when Sean's father was 14, and then was widowed again in 1972. She also outlived her oldest son. I can't fathom the grief of losing two husbands and one child, but Grandma really did seem to have a "you take what life gives you and you get through it" philosophy, which may have contributed to her longevity. She suffered a debilitating stroke in the fall that left her unable to walk, use her right side, swallow, or speak. Another person who was 95 might have given up then and there. But not Grandma -- she regained enough strength to zip around the hallways in her wheelchair, learn how to eat soft foods, and most remarkably, to speak in short sentences again. The speaking was the hardest part, and she struggled, but her strength came through as we watched her mind working and working, and then succeed as she would manage to blurt out something like,"Why are you all looking at me like I just said something stupid?" That's a long soliloquy for someone with aphasia!


I was too choked up today when the minister asked for people to share their memories of Leona, so this seems like the appropriate forum in which to share them now.

I was engaged to a cad man who I dated for 11 years. In 10 of those 11 years, his mother never once gave me a Christmas present. She was clearly caught off guard by my presence at their family gathering in my final year in that relationship, as evidenced by what she was able to scrape up to give me: a bottle of Old Navy perfume. My fiance was allergic to perfume. How welcomed into the family that made me feel.

I'm fuzzy on the details, but I think the first time I met Grandma Post was at her annual Christmas gathering for her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. This person, whom I had never met, had a gift ready for me. It didn't take her 11 years to finally decide maybe she should dig something out of a box of things she had no use for. No, despite short notice, and the fact she had 10 grandchildren and their spouses to buy for, not to mention the then 21 great-grandchildren, she had a gift for me. A pair of bright pink gloves. I have treasured those gloves over the years. They practically glow in the dark with their fuchsia brightness, and I figure they will light the way for rescuers to find me in the event I ever get caught in a blizzard or avalanche, but they are from Grandma Post, and she thought of me.

Story number two is the story of her relationship with T, the great-grandson who arrived in her 10th decade of life from a continent an ocean away, and who came into the family not by birth but by adoption. T somehow knew she was a special person, and even before he met her, would kiss her picture in his photo album very gently and tenderly. From the first time they met, when she was in the hospital recovering from a fall down the stairs in the house she lived in independently until her stroke later that year, they had a relationship that amazed and bemused all of us. Another child might have been frightened of the frail little lady in the bed, attached to an IV and wearing a funny looking hospital gown, but when it was time to leave and we told T to give Grandma a hug, he gently put his arms around her and then lifted his face and gave her a kiss on the lips. That sealed it. From then on, whenever he showed up or his name was mentioned, she beamed.

We visited her at Thanksgiving, about a month after her stroke. She was having terrible difficulty eating, and, unlike the Grandma we had always known, gave up in frustration. Other than saying, "No!" when asked if she wanted more food, the only thing she was able to say that day was "That, that, that....kid!" as she pointed to T. We thought she didn't want him there. We left the rehabilitation center thinking that was our final good bye, and that she had been disturbed by T's presence during the meal. But the next day Sean's parents visited, and when they told her they had heard T had visited the day before, her face lit up. Thankfully it was discovered that her swallowing difficulties were caused by low hydration, and when her fluid levels were increased, she was able to eat and drink again, and we had her for another seven months.

When it was determined that she would not be able to live at home again, she was moved to a nursing home nearer to Sean's parents, and thus also to us. We last visited her in early June. Nursing homes are difficult places for five-year-old boys with lots of energy, so we always brought along some toys for him to play with while we chatted. We found that we were able to overcome the communication gap with T -- there wasn't any need to talk while she smiled as she watched him play, or watched him watch the cars going by outside her window. This time he had brought a box full of matchbox cars. She wondered what he was playing with, so we had him bring the box over to her so she could see. There she sat in her wheelchair, carefully examining and exclaiming over each car as he produced them, one by one, for her to see. One brown-skinned boy and his pink-skinned Grandma, born on different continents and separated in age by almost a century, enjoying each other's company simply and tenderly and lovingly. A love the surpasses all understanding, except not where Grandma was involved. It is an image that is burned into my memory. How she cared for him, and how good he was with her.

At Grandma's 95th birthday, she blew out the candle on her cake and then announced that her wish was for no more birthdays. She got her wish, a wish that is our loss, but we understand she was tired and especially tired of not being able to express her thoughts. The inability to communicate must have been exhausting.

Grandma's favorite color was pink, and she was known for always wearing pink. So today we stood on the breeze-swept grassy hilltop overlooking the Mohawk Valley -- each one of us wearing pink -- some in pink skirts or dresses, some in pink shirts, me with my pink earrings, necklace, and hair piece, and most of the men -- including Sean and T -- with pink carnation boutonnieres, and we laid Grandma to her eternal rest.

"For all the saints, who from their labors rest
Who, thee by faith, before the world confessed
Thy name, oh Jesus, be forever blessed
Alleluia, Alleluia."

Rest in peace Grandma Post. You loved well and are well loved. I don't have much pink in my wardrobe, but I think I will go out and treat myself to something, in honor of a very special, spunky, kind, and generous lady.

Grandma (1915-2011) with Sean's father, the Thanksgiving Day we announced the news that we had accepted our adoption referral for T