ABUNDANCE

My Grandma, “Guiding Light” and the Secret of the Soup

Kathleen M. Miller’s Finest Ingredients for a Beautiful Life

“When I grow old I hope to be As beautiful as Grandma Lee. Her hair is soft and fluffy white. Her eyes are blue and candle bright. And down her cheeks are cunning piles Of little ripples when she smiles.”

-Rose Henderson

What does it mean to be a beautiful person?

Some people — often men — say that a woman is graceful so long as she’s smiling. In fact, my dad used to say that to me when I was 13 and had a mouthful of braces. File under: Ways to know you’re going through an awkward stage.

Sure. Smiling humans are beautiful. But I can’t agree with the “beauty is as beauty smiles” thing, and I don’t think Grandma completely would have, either — especially in her last decade on earth. There are perfectly good occasions for the stoicism and sadness, anger and indifference, and the terror and exhaustion a woman can wear — especially while parenting and wifing.

And while there is a stunning ballgown beauty in joy, some rooms are impossible to joyfully waltz through.

Some Facts About Grandma’s Life: Grandma outlived some of her younger siblings, her youngest son, and her husband. Grandma made do with what was available. There often was scarcity in her life, but Grandma herself was available to the people she loved.

She wasn’t somebody who was cracking herself up while dancing into a room. That was her partner, Ham. Grandma was the one who worked and dwelled in that room, and always was there when you walked through the door.

It was easy to take her for granted. But she was a comfort. And there is a bounty of beauty in being a family’s constant, supportive presence.

Grandma’s only real lapses in availability were when she would steal away into her room for a well-deserved nap. Or when something particularly dramatic was happening on Guiding Light and she didn’t want to miss what the characters were saying. But for the other 11 waking hours of the day, she made time for you.

To illustrate the centrality of Grandma’s dedication to home and hearth, here is a Venn Diagram.

More Facts: Grandma made stew out of whatever was in her fridge — chicken, rice, vegetables, etc. — but I never bothered to ask her whether she actually liked to. And not only was Grandma’s motley soup edible, it was invariably delicious* — despite sometimes having cabbage in it. *The deliciousness may not be a “fact,” per se, but it may as well be because a lot of people agree with me. It was some damned good soup.

Aside from containing stewed leafy greens, grandma’s soup also involved a “secret” ingredient. The identity of the secret ingredient was something Grandma revealed to me one afternoon after we watched her favorite soap opera on TV.

Maybe everyone else knew what the mystery ingredient was, too. There are plenty of open secrets in loving families. Still, I felt special.

Grandma talked with me about her soup as if she were confiding in her favorite person.

Which leads me to conclude that I am the only person who knows what went into the pot.

I haven’t tried adding the secret ingredient to the soups I’ve made for my own spouse and kids. But eventually, I will. And I have a feeling it won’t taste quite the same without her.

Grandma’s partnership with her husband was beautiful in several ways. But for me, the most salient one of all was that she kept Ham in check when he told inappropriate stories.

Once, a roomful of impressionable grandkids were gathered ‘round the living room at Pentwater. It’s extremely likely that we were eating popcorn and paying partial attention to a musical that involved singing nuns.

Ham told a joke:

Man With Wooden, Prosthetic Eye: Hello there, Miss. Would you care to dance? Woman (eagerly): Would I? Wood eye? Man With Wood Eye (highly insulted): Why, you fat b —

(*Grandma interrupts*: “HAM!!!!!”)

Ham wouldn’t have been half as funny without his pragmatic yet eternally annoyed wife as a foil. Grandma was the ambassador, the usher, the manager, and the keeper of the red SOLO cups. The cooker, the dishwasher, the magic cabbage buyer. The stayer-behinder while everyone else went out on a pontoon ice cream bender. She was the crocheter of God-knows-how-many blankies and never stopped loving us through births, graduations, staggering losses, and sadness.

And without triumph, beauty, cabbage, and loss, there is no soup.

When Grandma was a teen, she felt unpretty.

“I looked like a kid,” she once said to me. “I hated it.”

But maybe beauty is slow growth, deep waters, and stillness — when one would just as soon have a full dance card, a mastery of the jitterbug, and the shapeliest legs on the green. Beauty is acceptance of the self. Engagement in relationships. And showing up for the gathering — remaining, even, for more than a decade after one would just as soon have gone to bed.

Grandma wasn’t particularly religious in her last years — at least she didn’t seem that way to me. So I won’t quote a Bible verse to prop up her spiritual life.

Instead, it’s a modified stanza of Whitney Houston song lyrics that speaks to the level of commitment she had for the family — and the fact that she’s up there somewhere in the heavens, eating her open-secret soup with Fred and Ham:

“If tomorrow is judgment day… And the Lord asks me what I did with my life, I will say I spent it with you.”

-J. Duplessis; W. Jean — “My Love is Your Love”

In memory of Mary “Kathleen” (Platte) Miller (1928-2022).