All of my natural grandparents have passed away. Both my paternal grandmother, whom hereafter I shall refer to as Grandma, and my maternal grandmother, whom hereafter I shall refer to as Babi (the Czech translation), lived long enough to have a significant impact on my life, my values, and my views of how upbringing can shape a child’s growth and future choices.  I love both of these grandmothers a great deal. Because of the memory loss from my ECT, the loss of Grandma at the age of 96 in late Spring of 2008 is practically as fresh as the loss of Babi this past December.

Just as an aside, I am extremely lucky to have been so warmly adopted by my husband’s very active, talented, and loving maternal grandmother and her husband nearly 8 years ago (when Peter and I adopted two kittens together) as well as welcomed into the very large extended family of my husband, although I feel myself keeping my distance from the matriarch, who was beginning to show the first stages of Alzheimer’s when I first met her, and I just had too much experience slowly losing Babi to the same disease. I do feel very close to the family I married into, for which I am extremely lucky and grateful.

But the focus of this is on the two grandmothers who have so recently passed. The loss of these two strong women hits me at odd times. The oddest is when I joke about whom my cats inherited various traits from. When I thought about it, it became very clear that many of their most ingrained traits correlated to those of my grandmothers… so much so, that I decided to dedicate a post to it.

Leela and Grandma

Leela and Grandma are very alike. They take pride in their appearance and the image they show to the world. They also both have positioned themselves as Queen of their respective people. Be it a circle of friends or a family, they are the sun around which the others orbit. Both Grandma and Leela are extremely talkative, with large vocabularies, and have the astounding ability to complain or kibbutz while showing happiness or appreciation. They are both loving, but it is often a slightly more distant love. In Grandma because she lived so far away and was infirm for such a large part of my life and I was born so much later than her other grandchildren, and in Leela because I am, after all, just a servant.

Stewie and Babi

Both Stewie and Babi have issues with anxiety. Babi was always very concerned about social mis-steps and being destroyed socially by any minor mistake. This came out in many, many ways and touched me by my forming a long, long list of rules(which is constantly being updated and amended) for appropriate behavior (actions, reactions, and inaction) in various social situations. Stewie has anxiety over everything, often acting like a spy in enemy territory (I like to call it “playing Secret Agent Man”). When he’s in anxiety mode, he will jump at a moved shadow, will use a mirrored door to see around corners, has a special way of walking up and down our stairs so he doesn’t make it creak (which made me worry about his joints for a short while), will not allow himself to be touched, and will sit only in specific places. (Other times, he will lie in front of a window on his back with his belly exposed, purring as I walk by. He’s an enigma.) In addition, due to both stress and, possibly, allergies, Stewie has licked his belly and inner thighs completely bare. (Which I will come back to in the third major similarity.) In addition, both Stewie and Babi give of their whole selves when they do express their love which is occasionally overwhelming, but always deeply appreciated and reciprocated. Lastly, both speak with an accent.

Stewie’s Thighs and Both Grandmothers

Like most cats, Stewie often presents his butt to me at eye-level for no apparent reason. Also like most cats, he has extra skin at his thighs which allows for greater range of motion. Unlike most cats, however, this extra skin is not furry. Instead, looking at his behind, I see pale, pinkish wrinkly flesh starting at the knees and meeting at the middle (although he left that part untouched). It seems slightly inappropriate and reminds me way too much of all the times I saw my grandmothers naked and could not look away from what might one day happen to my body. (For this reason, I am looking into ways to clothe that part of his body. Chaps? A doggie shirt on backward, with cut-outs so he can use the litterbox? I will find a way!)

I hope this was at least mildly entertaining.