Grandma Eysail (pronounced "EYE-suhl")

***UPDATE 9.22.05 @ 10:45a.m.*** Just heard from my mother this morning that sometime in the wee hours, Grandma's husband, Roy, suffered a heart attack from which he likely will not recover. OMG! I cannot fathom Grandma having to be widowed again, and right before her birthday, too. What are the odds I would have written this last night, and this would happen today? So, I'll keep you posted, but it may end up with a trip to KC in my very near future. Any kind thoughts you'd like to toss Grandma's way, I'd appreciate it.

I wish I had a digital photo of my Grandma, or a scanner, or something to post a picture of her... but to you, it would merely be a photo of someone's grandma, nice enough if you like portraiture. It could never show you who she is or how profoundly she has influenced my life.

When we would vacation with my grandparents, I was always allowed to "camp out" with them. Grandma Eysail and I would have silly sleepover activities, like hair curling, nail painting, sundae making, and lipstick wearing. This was all enhanced by the taboo nature of those activities in my own home. Heavens! Grandma Eysail even wore jewelry!! She would sometimes take one of her heavy rings and slide it onto my finger, or drape a sparkly pendant carefully around my 6 year-old neck, sweep up my hair and tint my lips with rose-colored Avon. Oh! I had no idea I could be so pretty, but I must have been... for Grandma Eysail would gasp and clutch at her heart, exclaiming to the world how lucky she was to have such a lovely granddaughter.

This is poignant because my grandmother, Loretta, died a few years before I was born. All three of my brothers can remember her, but to me she's just an ancestral shadow. Grandpa married Eysail about a year before I arrived and in fact, she came to stay with my brothers while Mom and Dad went to my delivery. Eysail is the only Grandma I've ever known on that side of the family, and it shocks me sometimes to think we do not share any blood.

Grandma Eysail will be 92 on Monday. She lives independently and cares for her husband, Roy -- whom she married a few years after Grandpa died and who suffers from Alzheimers -- even though he is 6 years her junior. She is delicate and feminine, sturdy and tough, wise and silly, old and young. And she loves me...still. I will always be grateful for that.