Tom Brokaw gained even more notoriety after retiring by writing his book, "The Greatest Generation." In the work, Brokaw recounts the challenges facing the people who came of age during the Great Depression and World War II. More importantly, Brokaw shares stories of how this generation rose, not only to face these challenges, but to vanquish all comers. It is a real American story because it is the story of America.
My grandmother is one of those in that generation and her story is entering it's final chapter. A farm girl from the Midwest moved to the coast with her child to meet up with her husband. Together, they would help build the ships and planes that helped win the war. He went off to help fight it. She worked hard and bought the house she loved, the house in which she will pass into history. She has been my friend, my confidante, and my greatest supporter. Now, I have to go help her make her transition.
Growing up as a Gay kid in the late 60s and early 70s, I always knew that I was different somehow. It took decades to figure it out for sure, but I always knew my concerns were not shared by my peers. I wasn't just ostracized by my peers for being different. My family was just as bad. My maternal grandmother disowned me for being Gay after she practically raised me after my parents' divorce. My father and sister threw me out of the house for bringing my boyfriend home. My mother disowned me three times. My paternal grandmother never turned her back on me. She never disowned me. She has been my one constant supporter.
During the 1980s, designer was in. We had designer clothes. We had designer sunglasses. We had designer drugs. MDA, the grandfather of Ecstacy, LSD, crystal, crack, the country was awash in drugs and I was not impervious to them. After a very rough bout with crystal meth, my grandparents found me sleeping in the garden shed as I was unable to waken them in the middle of the night. My parents wouldn't put me in rehab, so my grandparents moved me in and got my life put back together. I was clean, sober and had a job.
By the 1990s, most of my Gay friends, enemies, and acquaintances in Seattle were dead of AIDS. It was unbearably painful and depressing to remain in my hometown. In addition, my grandmother's only request was that I not embarass the family; and by that, she meant my grandfather in front of his golfing buddies. It became increasingly more difficult to sit idly by and not do something. Therefore, I left my hometown and moved to San Diego. Within six months, I had established the Clean Needle Exchange Program and the Condom Crusades in the local high schools. Both of these issues were being hotly debated in the mayoral race Susan Golding and Peter Navarro. Then, I took on the Wilson Administration as a named petitioner in a class-action lawsuit. My lawyers were Baker & McKenzie and my PR firm was Hill & Knowlton. We won. There were no punitive damages, it was done purely for the principle. After that, I started lobbying up in Sacramento. And, where did I get all of this? My grandparents were very involved in Seattle politics. They would take my sister and I around with them putting political signs in people's yards who had requested them.
My grandmother was happiest with me when I decided to go back to college after seventeen years. I started at San Diego City College and made the Honors program after my first semester. Upon finishing my prerequisites, I transferred to UCLA as a Wasserman Scholar and even had lunch with the Wasserman family. My grandmother sent me pens, paper, post its, you name it; at the start of every quarter, there were more school supplies. She was so proud when I graduated.
My grandmother's hobby has always been her yard. She has her flower gardens, including a rhododendron garden out front, and her produce garden in the back where she grows her own raspberries, which she makes into the best jam ever created. She has always tended her garden and that may have led to the melanoma that is now eating her alive. It is with great sadness that I will be going up to help her make the transition into history. However, I am happy that I am the one who gets to help her for a change. Life seems to be coming full circle. In my spare time, I plan on weeding her gardens and tending to her berries.
I tease my grandmother about being from the "old country" because she was born on a small farm in Wisconsin. She moved out to Seattle with my father when he was a baby and all of her stuff fit into a chest. My grandfather had found a job during the war in the shipyards. She became a Rosie the Riveter at Boeing. My grandfather got her to sign the papers so he could go off to war. When the men came home victorious, she got a job at Sears in Seattle. The building is now the headquarters for Starbucks. She found a house that she really liked on top of the hill and bought it. My grandfather did not like change and did not want to move. She told him that if he wanted his dinner, he'd better follow her. They kept the old house. It was the one my sister and I were raised in until our parents divorced. She really is part of the Greatest Generation and will be greatly missed but not forgotten.