By Tara Munjee 
When I was four years old, Grandma Walsh would take two city buses to our house to care for me while my mother went to college. As a babysitter, Grandma was an absolute pushover compared to the neighboring teenage girl. Completely unflappable, nothing fazed Grandma. In fact, I can only recall one instance of friction between us.
One afternoon, I set up a miniature dollhouse tableau under a desk. Wanting to show off my creation, I coerced Grandma away from the kitchen into the adjoining den. “Gramma, come down to the floor so you can see how I set up my dollhouse,” I insisted.
“Oh my honey, dearie Tara, I cannit. My knees pain me so,” she replied in her lilting Irish brogue. Grandma always spoke this way, with her thick accent and arcane language, so it was often my responsibility to translate her jargon for my playmates. Viewing her speech as a greater impediment than her arthritic knees, I once suggested she join me in kindergarten. There, I told her, she could learn how to speak English. She wasn’t offended by my comment; instead, she and my mother had a laugh over it.
I can’t remember Grandma getting upset about anything, although given her personal history, she could have easily taken offense at her life’s trajectory. Leaving behind the rural poverty of County Mayo, Ireland (where the county slogan was “God Help Us”) in 1919 Ellen Browne sailed to Ellis Island, New York in search of better prospects. In New York City she found domestic work, and later, a husband, Henry Walsh.
While she came to the US full of hope in 1919, by 1926 she was tragically widowed and left with three daughters under the age of five. Her immigrant status, eighth-grade level of education, and lack of extended family in her new homeland practically assured a life of hardship. But in all my time with her, I never sensed deprivation. Instead, she radiated calm, tranquility, and gratitude for small blessings.
“Oh, isn’t this grand, now?” was her stock response to life’s little pleasures, such as sitting in a reclining chair or being served a hot cup of tea. Such delights were to her evidence of God’s grace.
Her enjoyment of simple pleasures, however, did not mean that Grandma was a simpleton. She had profound thoughts on life, most of which my mother shared with me after Grandma’s death when I was 16. Together my mother and I chuckled about the time Grandma announced to her teenage daughters that the most important thing about someone was his or her “chaar-rac-ter.” It took a while, but my mother and her sisters finally decoded “chaar-rac-ter” to mean “character.” I imagine it took them even longer to fully appreciate this wisdom.
On a more somber note, my mother once reminisced that Grandma said someone’s “chaar-rac-ter” was not necessarily revealed when all was going well, but instead, in the midst of life’s trials. How right Grandma was about this, I’ve since come to learn.
As she was a devout Catholic, I often saw Grandma kneeling on her swollen, arthritic knees in prayer throughout the day. While she privately said her morning and evening prayers, the rosary, and novenas, I would often slip into her bedroom and watch while she thanked God for her blessings and petitioned for guidance on how to handle difficulties. As an adult, I have come to realize that it was not coincidental that her bedroom door was left unlocked and slightly ajar so I could witness her devotion.
My parents of two different faiths decided to raise their children in an ecumenical household. While this was an admirable compromise on their part, for me, I feel that it led to a lack of religious grounding. Amid adult trials, when my “chaar-rac-ter” was being tested, I needed stronger moorings. I have found faithful religious practice helpful. And as a testimony to this realization, I am at times flooded with memories of Grandma.
Earlier, I described Grandma as an easygoing pushover, but she never compromised in her religious devotion. Like many of her generation, her religious beliefs were central to her life. She always lived within walking distance of a Catholic Church so that she could attend Mass frequently, if not daily. I now believe it was her unstinting faith that allowed her to be easygoing and infinitely kind, to peacefully accept life’s trials, and to be grateful for life’s smallest pleasures.
I would like to be more like Grandma—not in regard to her arthritic knees, or her life of economic hardship, but in her absolute trust in faith. Having enjoyed more worldly fortune than my grandmother ever did, I have the experiences, and therefore the belief, that the world provides many good things. I often see these gifts as my just desserts, not my sometimes-undeserved blessings. I, thus, have a lot of work to do in the gratitude department.
Yet while I am both lucky and blessed, nothing the world offers makes me feel as grateful as the comfort I feel while recalling Grandma saying something such as, “Oh my honey, dearie Tara, I am parched. How about we take a spot of tea?” This language “warms the cockles of my heartstrings” as Grandma used to say, and it is the jargon I will always understand, and love, best.
by Vicki Bahr 
