We had been through so much that year. Grampa had died in May; the official reason was "Congestive Heart Failure", but I suspect he actually died of dispair and fear of outliving Gramma. Gramma, diagnosed with terminal cancer, died in August. It was like a cloud hanging over us; no matter what we did or thought or said, we knew the summer would end with a funeral. We knew that by the time my nephews and my cousin's children went back to school, my Mom and my Uncle would be orphans.

It's not that we moped and mourned between May and August, it's more that we frantically lived. We spent as much time with Gramma as we could, we spent as much time with each other as we could. When we laughed - and we did laugh - it was with the knowledge that we would all too soon be crying. It was critical that we prove to Gramma that she had taught us well; that we would support each other when she was gone. I suspect, since we knew she was terminal, that we at least wanted to ease her mind a little.

After she died, I asked Mom which holiday - Thanksgiving or Christmas - would be the most difficult for her, promising that I would come to South Carolina so she wouldn't be alone. "Christmas," she told me, and I made my plans.

But, as I said before, I dreaded it. The year had been so emotionally draining; I didn't know how much more I could tolerate. We had survived her illness, we had survived her funeral. We had even survived the yard sale and the closing of her house, which was even more painful than her funeral. I envisioned us, Mom, Dad, Kristi, Carl, Eddie and I, sitting around Mom's house mourning. The very idea made me want to run away. I just wanted to forget for awhile.

I should have realized that Gramma wasn't going to let us sit around and waste a perfectly good holiday feeling sorry for ourselves. I should have also remembered that she had a prankish, puckish sense of humor.

Eddie requires cream for his coffee. Despite the fact that we've been married for 10 years, and that Mom knows he likes cream in his coffee, he is convinced that Mom never remembers. So when we hit Simpsonville at 11:30 at night, he insisted that we had to find a grocery store so he could buy cream. We hit every grocery store, mini-mart and gas station in Simpsonville. The grocery stores were closed - including the 24 hour ones ("We don't stay open 24 hours in a row!" one man exclaimed to Eddie.) The mini-marts carried all the beer you could ever want, but only the very basic of dairy products - milk and butter, while the gas-stations didn't even bother with dairy products (although if Eddie wanted to spike his coffee with beer, they'd be more than happy to help him out.)

Eddie finally admitted defeat after an hour or so (perhaps the crowbar I was threatening him with influenced him somewhat) and headed to Mom's. We pulled into her sub-division, Holly Trace, and as we started up the slight incline by Lana's house, the car died. Completely. Totally. Well, we still had battery power, but the Blazer wasn't going to start without some serious resucitation efforts.

I called Mom on the car phone. "I got some good news and some bad news!" I said brightly. "The good news is, we're here!"

"Okay," Mom said suspiciously, "What's the bad news?"

"We're down at Lana's. The car died."

After Mom agreed to come get us, Eddie turned to me and said, "I don't think I'll tell your mom that we drove around for an hour looking for cream, okay?"

"Then you better behave while we're here," I told him sweetly, "else I'll tell on you!"

The irony, of course, was that Mom had already laid in a supply of cream. After all, Eddie had been her son-in-law for 10 years, she knew his habits.

Mom, Eddie and I drove to Charleston the next day, after first dropping the car off at the repair shop. Kristi and Carl live in Charleston, and this would be my first visit there. I'd heard so much about it; Mom was in love with the city, and Kristi was a certified tour guide, so I was really looking forward to it. Carl, who seems to spend most of his waking hours working or going to school (he's a certified Radiologic Technologist, going for his Bachelor's in Medical Administration) had suceeded in getting 2 whole days in a row off both work and school.

Mom, Kristi and Carl were right: Charleston is a beautiful city. Kristi led us on a walking tour along the Battery, and I was amazed at what she told us. Not only did she know the facts - who built the houses, when they were built - she knew anecdotes. My favorite was the house that had no right angles; the confirmed bachelor who had it built was determined never to get cornered by a Charleston belle, so every corner in the house had an angle greater than 90 degrees. We peeked through wrought-iron fences at lovely gardens, still blooming even in December. Kristi pointed out steel rods that peered out from stuccoed facades, explaining that these were "earthquake rods", meant to keep houses from collapsing in the event of an earthquake. (I'd never known that Charleston had earthquakes, having previously believed that all earthquakes happened in California.) We walked down an alleyway - nothing like Northern alleyways - passed a Christmas garden party, and saw Santa Claus. ("Ho, ho, ho, Y'all!") I learned that the pineapple was considered to be a sign of hospitality, and was a recurring theme in Charleston decor. She showed us a bit of architectural design unique to Charleston, the Charleston Door; in order to maximize lot useage, most Charleston homes were built perpendicular to the street. (This allowed more room for their gardens, plus sheltered the houses from the winds off Charleston Bay.) In order to have some privacy on the verandahs (never porches, Kristi informed me), they created a door at the street end of the verandah. The door looked exactly like any normal front door, but when it was opened, it opened on to the verandah, not into the entry-way. I learned the difference between a verandah, a piazza and a balcony. (Don't ask me to explain them now, I've forgotten!) I saw my first porte-cochere - a driveway with an elaborate archway (in a lesser house it would be a drive-through carport) that allowed the ladies and gentlemen to dismount from their coaches and enter their hosts' house without getting rained on.

Kristi, I think, suffers from "Little Sister Syndrome". Well, that's not exactly true; Pete and I suffer from "Little Sister Syndrome." That's when older siblings tend to believe that their younger siblings are always children, always in need of guidance, and just not quite as knowledgeable as their older siblings. Kristi managed to correct that misconception.

The next day, she took us to the Market. Laugh if you like, but I was fascinated by the idea that I was visiting the same market that Scarlett O'Hara and Mrs. Butler had shopped at (in Alexandra Ripley's book, "Scarlett".) I bought a hand-woven sea-grass basket.

After the market, we drove to Sullivan's Isle. As we crossed the bridge that linked the island to the mainland, we noticed what appeared to be a thick white curtain in the middle of the bridge. When we reached the island, we discovered that the curtain was actually fog. I'd never seen fog like this; it was nearly like breathing water. Mom pointed at my hair and giggled, telling me that I was dripping water. A few seconds later, you could see the light dawn as she realized that if my hair was sopping wet, hers probably was as well. The fog was so thick, I had to take my glasses off; the air kept condensing on them.

We drove back to Charleston that day, and had Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas morning was spent tearing into our presents. Kristi won the prize for "Most poignant present": she presented me with a music box with 2 frogs in a lily-pad boat, obviously courting each other. She'd made a calligraphy banner to go with it that said, "Froggie went a courtin'". This was the song that Gramma sang to all of us when we were little.

What made this Christmas so special? It was the laughter. As I said earlier, we had laughed during the summer, but always with the knowledge that all too soon, we'd be crying. This time, though, we laughed without reservation. It had been a year - almost exactly, since Gramma first got sick Christmas of 1995 - since we'd been that light-hearted. We were like Helium balloons with no weights, like Champagne bubbles rising to the top of the glass. We were...lighthearted. That's the best word for it.

Actually, Eddie, Carl or Daddy will tell you that we passed lighthearted and went straight to goofy. Mom, Kristi and I giggled like little girls at a slumber party. That's okay; the 3 of them got to do some male-bonding as they looked sideways at each other and rolled their eyes at their goofy wives.

We were joyous and lighthearted. Even when we talked about Gramma and Grampa - and we did - we shared stories of love and happiness, rather than dwelling on those last few months. Most importantly, I saw in my sister and my mother some of the traits I loved best in my Grandparents that I feared I had lost with their deaths. "Immortality" takes many forms and the most precious is the living legacy they pass on to us.

© 1997 Lisa Stalnaker Hellwig

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