Today, fourteen years ago, the Twin Towers, a plane in DC and a plane in PA fell from the sky, and our nation felt the heaviness of it all- the heaviness of terror, and the horrible evil that this world harbors in dark corners. Somehow we are now here, slightly older, remembering that day with a sadness that somehow seems to refresh itself with grief every year. Yes, let's never forget. It also brings to my mind the atrocities that take place to this magnitude every day, all over the globe, even as I write this. Let's never forget that, either. It can be depressing, to think of the world this way, to see it through the eyes of its atrocities. But in order to carry on in my life and not be paralyzed, I try to choose to see the world through a different lens.
Today, 67 years ago, Isabel Sadler married her high-school sweetheart, Louis Plavidal and continued a family tree that eventually grew to where I am now. This stud and stunning lady were my fearless, loving, hilarious, light-up-the-room grandparents, each of them fulfilling those words in their own way.
My Grandad, Lou, was a funny, well/loudly dressed party-starter; a tennis-playing, go-cart-racing, sail-boat-wielding, bird-hunting, model-airplane-building, dog-loving, DIY-fix-it and chili-contest-contestant, with a sweet tooth that would make dentists around the world run and hide. His famous undoing were jellybeans. As kids, he would sneak us tiny colorful gumballs from his gumball machine that looked like an old-timey gasoline dispenser. They were always hard as rocks, but we loved them anyway. He brought out and put together the intensely detailed and delicate train set at Christmas-time that would run around the tree, and was well known for re-gifting things he'd been given from work-related clients etc (He worked for General Electric). Was this a predisposition from being a child of the Great Depression? Was it in jest? Hard to tell. We laugh about it still. We always (and still to this day) have a Christmas puzzle that the family works on together, and he created a mode of puzzle-ing called "Touchy-Move-y" which was instated towards the end of the puzzle, when there were only a handful of pieces left, and you weren't allowed to touch a piece unless you knew exactly where it went. Now picture a bunch of people hovered over a game table with their hands behind their backs... He was also well known for having approximately 900 projects going at the same time, most of them never fully finished. He loved boats and cars, and had his share of fixer-uppers, including a 1965 two-seater Lotus with a loud engine that he would take turns driving (flying) us three grand-kids around the neighborhood, probably to Granna's somewhat dismay at the speed.
He had a billion lovable disaster stories ('lovable' and funny always later, after-the-fact of course- though he probably always found the humor while they were happening...everyone else involved probably didn't until much, much later), always told and re-told at every Thanksgiving, especially after a "drinky-poo" (CC Manhattan on the Rocks- coincidentally my father's drink as well). Most involve trailers and their untimely unhitching, tires coming off and rolling past them on the highway, and canoes wrapping around rocks in rapid waters. He was an adventurer for sure. Their house was filled with his duck-decoys, and always smelled of old magazines and books. He had a great laugh, and when he really laughed: with eyes squeezed shut in a great guffaw, maybe a tear peeking out of the side of an eye...I can hear it right now.
My Granna, Isabel, was a gentle and kind, often quieter and observant counterpart to my Grandfather. She was a cold-peanut-butter-sandwich-making, health-conscious "you-have-to-drink-a-glass-of-water-before-that-juice"-saying, at-the-same-time-coffee-ice-cream-loving, read-to-us-in-the-hammock, and later in life: oatmeal-colored-everything kind of gal. Before I was born, she would follow her husband on many a trek into the wilderness and to dressy dinner-parties, and I imagine she held her own quite well. Pictures tell the tale of her classic beauty, which she let shine through simple yet elegant attire. Later on, we found several decadent sequined and feathered masks in their attic, apparently worn to mask parties, as this was something people actually did back then-classy as heck (Granna would not approve of me using the word "hell" there, even though I believe it to be appropriate). Granna had a stillness to her- not in the sense of not moving, but just an understated composure that we are hard-pressed to find these days. She was a smaller woman, but the thought of her smile and round little cheeks fills this giant kitchen I am sitting in right now. Later in her life her laugh dialed down a bit and sounded like a little cooing owl (I know, owls don't coo. It's just, bah it's the best I can do to describe it), with her little face squinting up (also not really a saying. Okay, just bare with me and imagine the cutest little lady "hmm-hmmm-hmmmm"-ing with her eyes and mouth closed tight like a pin (is that a saying?) at things she found funny). She also was famous (well, certainly family and friend famous) for her to-this-day hilarious cat joke. If you haven't heard it, I'm sorry. I can't transcribe it; so you'll have to ask me in person. I do a pretty good impression.
She was a very intelligent person, and it wasn't until much later that I learned just how smart she was. Had she been born in a different era, she would have been a scientist, probably in the field of particle physics. We'd find science articles marked up with her gentle scrawl, readings about sub-atomic particle discoveries and general cosmology. I reckon that if she was still alive and we could talk again, we'd have many very interesting discussions. But instead of following what was apparently her hidden dream, she studied home-making in college, as was the way of things back in the 50s. As a child of the Great Depression, she washed and saved aluminum foil, and rarely wasted anything. The phrase I recall most heard from her (besides the cat joke that we'd plead for her to re-tell all the time, even up into the last years of her life), that I use all the time in my life now is: "everything in moderation." Which is how she lived her life. She also had an unwavering faith in God, which I admire, even if it is from (somewhat) afar and from a different place. I have learned a lot from watching all of this growing up, re-thinking over it, and re-examining it now as an adult. There are so many things I admire about my Grandmother, but her gentleness, steadfastness, and considerate moderation are towards the top. She was a magnificent woman.
We'd gallop around their ranch-style house and modest backyard, color with crayons in the aqua kitchen, play with Grover- their big yellow lab with quintessential dog breath, pick the delicate coins off the dried money plants, swing in the shaded hammock, work on puzzles and play dominoes in their mustard carpeted living room, and venture into the dark basement where Grandad did his projects. Much of my early writing was done on old sheets from yellow lined legal pads in that house, and especially in the basement behind the many-year-out-of-use bar towards the back near the sliding door. I'd sit on the dusty (a pleasant mix of real dust and wood dust) floor and write stories about lots of things, but a lot about a young girl and her adventures to summer camp where she would discover magic in one form or another. [side note: Where are those stories now? I wish I knew where they went off to, there's probably a short story in there somewhere, or maybe it was just digested and regurgitated conglomerations of stories that I was also reading at the time. Hmm. Well, we'll never know.]
Today I am remembering these two great people. Even though they both passed away before I was truly able to really appreciate them as human beings (I think), I consider them and who they were now, and I feel humbled and blessed, and tearful. There are many wishes I have about them, wished I had played my grandfather in tennis (he probably would have won, though I think I could have given him a run for his money), wished I could talk to my grandmother about cosmological ideas.
So today is full of anniversaries, these are just two. Both remind me of what being a human means. Both challenge me to leave this world better than it was when I found it.
Young and beautiful Isabel, whom my mother is the spitting image of.
Isabel (on left) and Mickey, her older sister (Easter 1947, the year before they got married)
Lou and Bel and my two uncles Gary and baby Rick, before my Mom was born.
and, my Grandad, the ultimate jokster. I can hear Granna now: "Loouuu."
My sister Rie is the namesake of my Grandmother (Rie's middle name is Isabel) and they always had a special bond.
This is me three years ago, sporting one of my Grandad's spectacular pairs of pants. He was a colorful dude, in all the ways.
There's many more pictures, of course- these are just the ones I could find easily thanks to social media. There is one picture in particular of Isabel and Lou's first Christmas that I couldn't get my hands on early enough for this post, but it's probably my favorite picture of them. Perhaps I'll find it and add it in later.
Love you both.
Wonderful. That's the only and best word I have for it. Thank you.
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