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Eulogy for June Meyers December 20, 2009

December 20th, 2009

Grandma, I always made sure to visit you to deliver at least a half an hour of quality teasing every time I came through Los Angeles from wherever else I was living.

It’s weird for me to come to LA and for this to be our time together. The last time.

My first memory of you is when you came by our house in Granada Hills when I was around 6 and you didn’t want to touch me because I had a cold.

I remember better times after that staying over with you enjoying 5 PM dinners at Sizzler, playing with cool electronic things Uncle Steve left behind, rocking out on your organ and hanging around in the kitchen drinking ginger ale while you made tuna for lunch. I felt comfortable at your place.

I also remember deciding when I was 12 or so that I shouldn’t accept money from you. You started talking about your will for some reason and I told you firmly that I wanted you to ‘write me out of it’. After that yearly Chai (and later double-chai) september birthday checks went uncashed and the annual tradition of you asking me around july whether you should call the bank and cancel the check kicked off!

I didn’t want to have money screw up our relationship as it did so many of your other relationships

My next series of memories are from high school years when I often wished you were a different kind of grandmother - more affectionate, more supportive, I guess someone I could go live with if things got really rough!

After I moved out of LA when I was 18 and over the next twenty years or so my experiences with you were a series of snapshots where I was lucky enough to get to know you better each time and to have a great time every visit to your apartment.

Thinking back and given your enjoyment of a good dust-up, it still amazes me that we never had a disagreement, were usually laughing and, I think, both looked forward to each, admittedly brief, visit.

On one trip to LA about ten years ago, I remember driving you back to your place from some Ventura Blvd. restuarant in my flashy Jaguar and you telling me about some dapper guy you’d gone out with on a few dates 20 years before that also drove a Jaguar. We talked about how you’d never really wanted another man after grandpa sol died and you told me how much he’d meant to you.

After you had your first stroke, I got to see independent grandma - the fiesty one that saw being dependent as a mortal sin. I respected the hell out of you for overcoming disability after disability. Sicknesses that I’m sure have beaten down less formidable and ornery grandmothers.

As I continued to see you on my ocassional swings through LA I finally cracked the code on the perfect grandma visit.

Teasing.

The visits got more hilarious each time as we followed the formula.

First, you’d complain about health issues past and present. I’d commiserate.

Next, I’d catch you up on what I was doing somewhere pretty distant. It didn’t matter much if it was Tokyo,  Mexico City or San Diego - it felt like I was giving you dispatches from exotic places. I always did admire how you didn’t want or need anything beyond the world bounded by the San Fernando Valley and memories of Chicago.

Then the teasing would start. At first it was mostly me with high comedy like the one-ply toilet paper bit, riffing on creatively edited versions of different TV soaps as seen in a two-inch horizontal strip on your always broken TV and best of all, a growing collection of fine walker jokes. All good for a laugh. A few years ago, when you started to tease back, I started to see you as a friendly voice for the first time - someone I had a real relationship with.

A few nights ago when I got the email from Dad that you were dying I wasn’t surprised and my first thought was to wish you could go out the way you wanted - independent until the end.

I was still crushed though and cried for a long time.

I cried for everything you were to me, to my father and to others.

I cried for the everything you weren’t that I wanted you to be.

Most of all I cried because I love you and always knew you loved me, in your way.

Goodbye.

Entry Filed under: Personal Musings