My Grandma Rose Dream, Journal Entry 4/16/2016

Lois Spotts, Tina, Grandma Rose, circa 1995

She was with me, Grandma Rose, my mother-in-law. She seemed sad. She was wearing her signature house dress with rope belt. Rose stood over me quietly pondering something, watching and observing like she did from time to time, studying us, her children, grandchildren, and daughters-in-law like me. 

Rose always had a big heart. Although the words she spoke weren’t exactly “I love you,” they were laced with love, that is, they usually asked a lot of questions or told you what to do. 

“Do you pack Roger’s bag when he travels?” 

“What kind of food are you cooking for supper?” 

“You’re gonna roll my hair for me tonight.” 

“What’cha doing in the kitchen?” 

“No, you can’t have the key to the freezer.” 

“Don’t cut that cake until Sunday.”

Many times, she would send us things we didn’t ask for but she knew we needed them before we did.

“Now I bought this little sweater for Cannaday, I got it for $2.00, see. I was waiting for the price to go down. They wanted $12 for it 2 weeks ago.” 

“Did you get the box? I had a coupon for those toaster strudels the kids like, and it was double coupon day and they were on sale, ha ha, so I really got them for a good price. I sent you 2 boxes.” 

The delivery of her boxes was like receiving gifts from Heaven. Roger and I would be on our last $5.00 until his payday. Trying to stretch a can of soup and a pack of ground beef for 7 days was tough for a family of 3, but when Grandma Rose’s boxes arrived, it was like Christmas in July. She would send uncooked bacon and frozen foods carefully wrapped in layers of tinfoil; and the meat would be cold when it arrived if not still frozen. The box contained all kinds of pasta, such as boxes of Kraft mac and cheese, Rice A Roni, and packages of Lipton noodles. Chicken flavored noodles were my favorite, and Rose knew this so she would stock up, buy them when they were on sale AND she had a coupon, AND it was double coupon day. 

 

Being from Cleveland, I never heard of “double coupon day,” and my mother didn’t clip coupons, so I didn’t. But Rose was an expert on how to maximize savings and get the most out of your shopping dollars. Sunday evenings, Rose would go through the paper and clip coupons of items she knew her family liked, like Pillsbury toaster strudels, which were a luxury I couldn’t afford. I could only buy bread, and we could make toast and maybe sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on it if I could spare the sugar, or sometimes I could afford jelly. But Rose would clip the Pillsbury coupon and wait until they went on sale. She was a savvy and experienced shopper who knew that eventually everything went on sale.

 

Rose went “to town” as she called it, every day except Sundays. She never learned to drive, so Rose would walk the mile down her half-paved street to the bus stop 6 days a week, and take the bus into town. She could only carry a few things home, so Rose did her shopping over several days, buying a few items each time. She also monitored the stores and their sale schedule. She knew when Sears was going to mark down the dish towels she had her eye on, when JC Penney’s was going to have a clearance sale on children’s clothes, and she knew when double coupon day was at the grocery store. This was shopping in Rand, West Virginia and the downtown mall in Charleston WV. If she found a coupon for $0.75 it was like rolling doubles on the dice in a board game, because only coupons up to $.99 were honored on double coupon day, and manufactures only offered coupons up to $0.75 or maybe a $1.00, so finding a $0.75 coupon was like hitting the jack pot. Rose would clip coupons, send me coupons in her letters and would take delight in saying, "And I found this one for $0.75. Now wait until it goes on sale before you use it.” Yes, Grandma Rose taught me how to maximize my shopping dollars and use coupons.

 

So, in my dream, I felt her love and concern as she quietly stood over me. When I first met her, I was uncomfortable with her constant staring at me. I thought she was judging me, looking for ways to criticize me or tell her son not to love me. But over time I learned that was her way of “seeing” us. Maybe she didn’t understand me fully, but I knew she loved me and did what she could to help me be a good mother and wife and take good care of my young family. I was 21 years old. 

But in my dream, I wasn’t 21, I was my current age, and I understood her. I felt her love and concern as she stood over me with that signature stare. She didn’t speak any words but I knew what she was saying, what she was feeling. She was missing Burdell, her husband who had passed many years before her.

Burdell Chapman, circa 1990

I said, “I know you miss him; of course you miss someone you spent 40 years with.” But then I felt her correcting me, and I said, “Someone you spent 60 plus years with.” She just stood there with her arms crossed and her heart heavy. So, I asked if she wanted to lie down with me, to sleep with me for the night. She slowly bent down and laid across my chest. I wrapped my arms around her. I patted and caressed her back, feeling the rough cotton of her house dress, and I felt the small mounds of her breast pressed against mine. And we laid like that for a moment. And then I woke up.