Opa

I walked down to the cemetery and met my dad to put some flowers on graves.  We visited my grandparents' graves and Dad told me stories of many of my relatives.  I hear these stories periodically, but it's good to be reminded.  Dad had two uncles, John and Seymour, who died on the same day, and they were young, maybe in their 40's.  He had a cousin who died in a car accident on her way home from the junior prom.  One family lost all three young sons in an accident in the 1940's.  All these stories were once somebody's unbearable reality, and still so tragic.

Coco and Bill and Nana and I took some of the kids to visit Opa's grave and Aunt Pat's grave in Bountiful.  Opa was the light of everybody's life.  He was big and kind and gentle and loving.  In my violin shop, I have a 6-foot-tall portrait of him as a young boy, dressed in knickers and a perfectly pressed shirt, playing the violin.  He also played the organ and had an art studio in his home, which was open to any and all grandchildren who wanted to paint.  He was larger than life, so much so that it's hard to accurately describe how wonderful Opa was, how I love him and how much I wish I could wrap my arms around his strong waist again.  Since his death, I have felt his presence in my life on many important occasions, and I know he has a role as a protector of his family from behind the veil. 

For all the wonderful experiences I had with Opa before he died, the one I treasure the most came years after he died.  In 2000, I was pregnant and I had a dream that I was walking up my street holding a little boy's hand.  Opa came and took the boy's tiny hand and floated away with him.  The next day, I had a miscarriage.  The "Opa dream" I had was, and is, a comfort to me that everything is taken care of and everything is right.  I feel blessed to know that Opa's strong hands and strong, faithful intellect are still serving to bless his family.  It's so nice to have Memorial Day as a time set aside to remember where we came from and who helped us get here.  I'm grateful!

Comfort Food

The Rubies

Nana's girls

The whole time I was growing up, all of my 24 cousins gathered at my Opa and Nana's house every Sunday night. As a youth, I absolutely depended on those gatherings to ground me and make me feel that the world was as it should be. A big part of the comfort factor was the food. I knew for a fact that there would be Aunt Marla's lemon dessert and Nana's chocolate chip cookies waiting for me. I knew the cousins would watch Silver Spoons and Punky Brewster and the grown-ups would gather in the pristine, white living room to catch up.

I was reminded of Nana's chocolate chip cookies this week when Marlene told me that she is careful to make cookie dough whenever Jakey comes to her house. I love that she does that, because I know how disappointed he would be if he opened the fridge and Grandma's cookie dough wasn't there. To this day, I remember one Sunday when Nana bought cookies at Albertson's and put them in the special ZCMI shirtbox she usually put her homemade ones in, nestled between the cool sheets of waxed paper. I remember tears stinging my eyes and feeling unreasonably betrayed and devastated.

I don't know why it was so imperative that the cookies and the lemon dessert always be the same. I felt that way about my mom's bran muffins and homemade bread and my grandma Golda's roast beef and toasted cheese, my grandpa Bill's Election Day chili and the Dutch food Nana made for Opa. I was even comforted by Slurpees the summer my grandfather died. He died on Memorial Day, and we were all a little bit lost that summer. Almost every night, my Aunt Tricia drove my grandpa's four grandchildren to 7-11 for a Slurpee, which we'd take to the cemetery. It sounds strange, but it gave us a new routine to cling to in the face of change and loss.
Away from home in college, I'd find myself buying buttermilk for the bran muffins or calling home to get the recipe for Mom's heavy, whole wheat bread. I never missed an election day without chopping the onions and celery for Bill's chili. When my brother left for a mission in Brazil, my dad inexplicably packed over 24 grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for him to take on the plane. He sliced the cheese, grilled each one and carefully wrapped them individually in napkins and tin foil. I guess he was thinking that those sandwiches would bridge the gap between the continents and the two years Traj would be gone. Many people on the flight to Brazil enjoyed one of my dad's sandwiches. Jack Spratt bread, cheddar cheese, a thick slab of ham, a little Heinz chili sauce...

Food connects us to each other and creates memories that nothing else can. This summer, the kids and I and Coco have taken a couple of pies to Nana's house to sweeten our visits. Every day, somebody asks hopefully if we can get a pie and go to Nana's house. Of course we can! How easy is it to hop in the car, stop by Marie Callendar's and spend an hour at Nana's house. When the storms roll in and the leaves fall and the kids go back to school, I hope they'll feel as comforted by their memories of summer pie as I do by my memories of Nana's chocolate chip cookies.

Keepers of Tradition

I can only think of one day out of the year when my calendar has just a single word on it. Lagoon. Every Memorial Day, we go to Lagoon with the Dopp family. No matter what, that's what we do, and that's the only thing we do. I think Marlene said the Lagoon tradition had been going on since the mid-1600's. Is that right? :) One year, there were no kids in the family, and someone thought it would be ridiculous for a bunch of adults to pay lots of money to sit around Lagoon and eat. So we went to a park instead. BIG mistake. Everyone is still bitter and angry about it, myself included. You just don't mess with tradition. Sometimes Mother Nature messes with tradition, though. One year we were hampered by a torrential downpour that forced the whole family to gather at our house for the day. It was the kind of rain where you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. But with all the picnic food and togetherness, it was still Lagoon Day.

So yesterday's drizzles were nothing compared to that ONE year. After a picnic chez Scott and Circe, where we waited out the worst of the rain, all the Dopps spent Memorial Day at Lagoon. The first ride we opted for was Odysea, where...you get wet. It was a little redundant.

But kids don't care if they're soaked to the core, sporting frozen, blue lips. The fact that their feet are shriveled, rotting things inside their wet socks does not prevent them from joyously jumping in puddles. It's heartening to see that neither childhood enthusiasm nor family tradition can be dampened by...dampness. Thanks, Bruce and Marlene, for giving us the gift of tradition, and making sure it's a gift we use. It's "just the right size, and just the right color!" We love you!