Cheers for grandmothers on this special Mother's Day

“Lite Svenska pojke!”

That is what was what Grandma Wickham would call me when I would stay with her in Muskegon. I was her little Swedish boy.

Beda Wickham, née Hagstrom, was a stout Swedish grandmother who could be one part doting “mom”, making me Swedish meatballs for dinner, and one part Dirty Harry, wielding a mean broom as she faced off with her nemesis, the mole.

My time with her was short; she died when I was 10, but I remember many of those moments, especially when she came running to the living room one day.

“Tommy, what did you do?,” she yelled, glancing at a broken window and then me holding my arm.

“I bwoke my arm! I bwoke my arm!” I bellowed.

Fortunately, she didn’t go all Dirty Harry on me. She gave me the look and told me I had to explain what I did when my parents returned. That was punishment enough for me. I thought Grandmas were soft, forgiving souls who wouldn’t rat out an innocent lite Svenska pojke like me. She didn’t; I had to do the dirty work.

On this Mother’s Day, I decided to pay tribute to grandmothers, the women who often serve as the moral compass for a family, are the arbiters of disputes and the ones to remind us to be respectful and responsible. And, as they age, they remind us that life is fleeting and it’s imperative that we remember what they did, what they learned and what wisdom they imparted throughout their lives.

This is even more important in this pandemic. For the last few weeks, Rebecca has been pulling out box after box of personal belongings and sitting on the floor, helping her mom go through decades of memories.

Mary Arnould, née Diamond, is one of the sweetest people I ever met. There is no stereotypical animosity between me and my “mother in law”; rather, I always call her “mom” and revere her as a son. She is always looking out for me, often saying “you’ve been working too hard, let me cook dinner.”

Mary’s presence in our lives is extra special because of the role she plays as a grandmother. She has a number of grandchildren near and far and they all look up to her as a role model. My two boys, Ian and Alex, have been blessed to spend most of their lives growing up with Mary in the house.

Mary and her husband John moved in with us in 2006. It was a great opportunity for our “little boys” to grow up and learn from their “grammie and papa”. Little did we know what lessons they would learn so quickly in their youth.

Life has a way of catching us off guard. One moment, the boys are being ferreted away by their grandparents for ice cream. Another moment, they are watching an ambulance pull up to the house to take their grammie to the hospital.

There were no allusions when we merged households that life would be perfect. Only two years after the move both my parents died and a year after that John succumbed. John was the foundation of the Arnould clan. But in the years since, I’ve come to realize that John alone could not teach and guide his family. Mary was there every step of the way. And, after his death, she became the North Star for us all.

Ian and Alex realize this. I see it in the way they firmly but tenderly help Mary out of a chair or guide her along the groomed grass to visit John’s grave at the national cemetery in Howell. It’s especially evident during this pandemic as we carve out time to eat dinner in front of the TV, watching Phantom of the Opera, episodes of Cheers or the wackiness of Grand Tour. The shared laughter is genuine and reassuring in this time of uncertainty.

No one knows how long we will have Mary. There have been times when we said “this is it” when she looked and sounded her worst, needing urgent medical care. There are times we can hear her talking to “Johnny” and we sense her desire to join him. But Mary survives. She soaks in all the stories, near and far, about her grandchildren, great grandchildren and others in the extended family. She expresses a desire to see the younger generations grow up.

Whenever her time comes, I know Ian and Alex will not only shed tears but will share laughs about their time with grammie. I know they will remember her wisdom, her love and her ability to make them laugh. I know this because that is what I remember from my time with my grandmother.

Beda was the center of my early life. I only saw her a few times each year when we would take the train from Chicago to Muskegon. Those visits, though, were wonderful and left a lasting impression on me.

She told me stories about how her parents emigrated to the United States from Sweden and set to farming in the Muskegon area. It was a hard life, but Beda learned to find ways to have fun, namely, to hang out in Bluffton when the vaudeville performers (including a rather funny young boy named Buster) came to relax and revel in the cool Lake Michigan breeze each year.

Beda was not only one to instill in me an early understanding of responsibility and exploration, but her life and experiences left an indelible mark on me. As Rebecca goes through box after box of memories with her mom, I am doing the same with my own boxes of memories. The photos and letters, the documents and articles all speak to a time when Beda and my other ancestors dealt with pandemics, wars, political divisions, depressions and life, in general.

I guess, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And the same is true with grandmothers. They really are our moral compasses, arbiters of disputes and the ones to remind us to be respectful and responsible.

So, here’s to the grandmothers who stare down moles with broom in hand, steal their grandchildren to get an ice cream cone on a hot summer day and share a laugh as we eat dinner in front of the TV.

With love and thanks, this “lite Svenska pojke” thinks you are all the best.