Grammy & Grampy

Lately I've been thinking a lot about my maternal grandmother, AKA Grammy, AKA the namesake of the protagonist in my mystery series: Sophie.

She was raised by her immigrant parents in Nebraska. When she reached junior high she lucked out and was enrolled in a school with great teachers. She found a love of learning and she thrived, shooting to the top of her class.

And then her parents moved her to Chicago. The Chicago schools simply refused to believe that a little school in Nebraska was capable of providing an education that was on par with the education offered by a big city like Chicago. Certainly not to a little immigrant, Jewish girl like my grandmother. So despite being academically ahead the Chicago school system insisted that she be held back a year. She was devastated. And despite their metropolitan-superiority-complex the Chicago school she was in was significantly worse than the school she had just left. She stuck it out for as long as she could but when she was in her sophomore year the depression hit and she had to drop out in order to help support her family.

But while Chicago may not have had the best schools they did have some of the best museums and libraries. My grandmother would visit these places, immerse herself in art and literature and eventually she came to a decision: She would educate herself. She would create a better life for herself and her children would live a better life too; a life filled with learning and art.  The hell with the system and the rules. She was in charge of her own destiny.

My grandfather had a similar upbringing and together they did exactly what they set out to do. They found a way to work their way up in the world. My grandfather started as a salesman, then they moved to Los Angeles and opened a laundromat...that they lived in the back of. And from there my grandfather started to make things, he taught himself engineering and eventually found that he could make tools and mechanical parts that other people needed.  By the time World War II hit my grandfather had his own manufacturing plant and was making parts for the airplanes used by American fighter pilots. My grandmother helped him with the business end of things and managed the finances while she raised my mother. And she made sure that art was a huge part of my mother's upbringing. She exposed her to the work of the masters, she made sure she learned piano at an early age and that she was enrolled in ballet. When my mother was in jr. high she was sent to a voice coach to help her with her singing.

And the importance of the written word was stressed. For my grandmother words, whether they were written, spoken or sung, were little works of art in their own right and they were to be honored and appreciated. A psychic once told her that my mother should be a writer; that it was her calling. My grandmother cherished that prediction, shared it with my mother and hoped. But it wasn't my mother's dream. And so when I was a little girl and writing stories for my classes my grandmother would sit with me and tell me about the psychic. "I think she was a little mixed up," she would say. "It wasn't your mother she was seeing. It was you."

It was an odd thing to say because my mother and I didn't really believe in psychics. Technically speaking neither did my grandmother. But then again, we all want to believe in a little magic, especially when the magic tells us what we want to hear.

And so my grandmother and my mother made sure I had the same exposure to the arts that my mother had. My grandmother made sure I took music lessons and voice lessons and encouraged my writing.  My mother brought me to art museums and taught me about Renoir while my grandmother showed me pictures of the work of Van Gogh. My mother introduced me to Hamlet when I was six and I loved it. Truly loved it. I immediately became a fan of Shakespeare and the theater.

See, the arts weren't treated as extracurricular activities in my family.  In my family the arts had value. Every bit as much value as math and science...in fact math, science and art were all considered to be, in many ways, intrinsically connected.

And my grandfather made sure I had a love of learning. When I asked him a question about a subject he never just gave me an answer. Instead he'd get a gleam in his eye and he'd say, "Let's go look it up!" He'd then lead me over to this giant encyclopedia he had propped up on a stand in the living room.  There, among hundreds of beautiful pictures and enticing articles on every subject imaginable we would research my answer. Note that I did not say we would find my answer. Oh no, we would look at my question from every angle, and we would find as much information as possible so that I would not only have an answer I would understand the full weight of it in a way I never imagined possible.

My grandparents were, in so many ways, extraordinary people. I didn't pursue writing as a career during my grandmother's lifetime and yet I'm not sure I would have done it at all if it wasn't for her influence.  I so hope that wherever she is right now she sees this. I hope she knows I'm on the New York Times bestsellers list and that there was truth in her psychic's prediction (as well as my grandmother's interpretation of that prediction). I hope that she knows that the little bit of magic she insisted on believing in despite her own skepticism bore fruit. I hope both Grammy and Grampy know that I learned from their perseverance and their willingness to carve out their own unique path. I hope that my grandfather knows that I continue to have a passion for learning and that when I have a question I research my answers. And I so hope my grandmother knows that continue to value art and the beauty and power of words.

They set a wonderful example. I'm following it.