Visions of Johanna Friday, December 31, 2004

Gran is gone. She lost half her ring finger as a child, never passed a phone booth without checking for change, and buried the daughter who was named after her. For decades she went to mass every morning but could swear hard enough to make you blush. (One day she announced, apropos nothing, "That Mike Tyson has a tiny deeck!") On her bedroom wall she hung indulgences, and a George Clooney Poster.

She was Old World, and Depression, in her habits and her manners. She gobbled fruit in the supermarket and hunted for day-old rolls behind the bakery. As a kid she was a gymnast, and strolled the streets every day until her late eighties, in a kerchief and old canvas sneakers. Everyone she met got a piece of her mind. But she saved most of it for her daughters and sons-in-law, who shared her house.

She loved her grandchildren. She cooked our meals when my mother went back to work, did our laundry and slipped us a few bucks every Christmas; on New Year's Day, she would take us around the neighborhood, scavenging for cash people had dropped the night before. She lived long enough to love her great-grandchildren, too, although a certain Wrong Turn Jr. arrived just under the wire.

She also loved Andrea Boccelli, Rico Brogna and the New Jersey Devils. She was one of a kind, in the world and in our hearts. I can't speak for the Devils, but the rest of us will keep her memory close forever.

@ 10:38:00 AM,

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