I’m not the person in our family who usually has insomnia – that’s my wife. But for the past few weeks I’ve been awake in the wee hours of the morning. I wake up with the task of my dream still at hand.
One early morning I was dreaming that I was trying to clean ants out of our house (those hardworking persistent non-native San Francisco ants that we haven’t had in our house in years, but I still fear their return) and I woke up and went to look for a sponge to use to wipe/clean them up.
This morning it was 4:10am when I woke up convinced that I was holding a mouse I had just found and I needed to find a box for it. I could feel the tiny scared animal’s heart beating in my fingers and I could see the nest of paper bits it had made in a corner of the room. I put my glasses on and realized there was no mouse. I’d seen a tiny mouse on our patio a few days ago. Now it’s in my dream house.
Since it was just after 4am and we try to all get up around 7am on weekday mornings I decided to stay awake and get things done. I started to make lunch for Lucy’s school lunchbox but I was pacing around and being too noisy. I decided to sit. in. one. place. and look over our 2008 Christmas card address spreadsheet and make updates for 2009. I was anticipating updating addresses of friends who have moved and adding addresses for some new friends.
Then I saw a line in the spreadsheet with my grandma’s name and address. I was casually organizing the list and thought, “she’s not around anymore, so remove the row,” and then I just fell apart dripping big huge tears all over the cat and the laptop keyboard.
Since she died in March I have grieved her loss the most when I think of calling her or sending her a letter or visiting her or telling her about something. When Lucy’s official Kindergarten portrait was delivered, I wanted to send one to my grandma because I knew she would love it. When Lucy announced that she wants to be a “bug scientist” when she grows up, I wanted to tell my grandma because she loved to encourage women to be scientists. When I have an interesting project at work I like to write to my grandma about it because I know she likes to hear about it.
She was my “look at this!” go-to person who would almost always respond with love and support and attention. I always wanted to show her things or share things with her and I always wanted to impress her.
I have a file drawer full of photos from her collection and I’ve been scanning them and hope to create and print a book of her photos for my siblings and parents. One of my favorites was probably taken while she was at Wesleyan in the late 1920′s or early 1930′s – such dashing women:
Harriet, Queenie, Evelyn, Margaret, Frances - early 1930's or late 1920's
beautiful. gorgeous picture. makes me wonder what those other women went on to do. can you look at a picture and know which ones will go on to lead such a full lovely life till they are in their nineties?
that image of holding a tiny scared beating heart in your hand is incredible.
glad wanda was there for you at 4am.
My name is Mark Mapes. I went to Thomas Downey High School from 1969-1973. I had the great fortune to have Mrs. Rasaka as my Freshman and Sophomore math teacher. I then was a Teacher’s Assistant for her in my Junior and Senior Years. She is one of two teachers I still talk about to my son and grandchildren. She was, in my opinion, one of the smartest teachers I ever had. Even through college. There was not any subject that she did not know something or everything about it. I played three sports in High School and two in college. I must confess she wasn’t much into sports. But she was always into her students and would ask me questions daily about sports. She wanted to know about rules, plays, terminology, etc. I have been trying to find out if she is still alive and where she was living. I know she truly enjoyed the state of Oregon. If you want you can email me as I would like to know more about your Grandmother. What she did after the 1980′s. I would keep going back to the High School in the 70′s and she was always interested in what I was doing with my education and life in general. If you wish you can contact me.
Thanks so much for the stories about my grandma, Mark! She was such a brilliant kind woman. She often talked to me about how much she disliked teaching because it was a job she said she felt forced into as a woman when she couldn’t find work as the scientist she was trained to be (and she spent a lot of her working life making a fraction of her male colleagues who had less education/experience than her). Clearly she was a fantastic teacher in spite of herself. I’ll send you an email with more stories.