My favorite picture of my Grandma is pretty simple. She sits upon the pony cart, not much more than 30-years old with a frown upon her face. Or at least to anyone that doesn't know her it was a frown but to those closer to her, she thought she was smiling. Generations later I would inherit that same trait. Her jeans are rolled up above her leather boots and she is wearing a traditional Western shirt, by no means does she look like your typical cowgirl. And maybe that's right, she wasn't your typical cowgirl. She was a redneck gypsy. It's my favorite picture of her, she looks so free even if she is "frowning."
Whenever I think about my Grandma, I always think "she deserved so much more." To me, she is a legend. Maybe to the common person she may sound like just another Grandmother.
But she wasn't.
Normal Grandmother's teach their grandkids to crochet (my Aunt ended up teaching me this instead), cook, or tie their shoes. Grandma Bernie did none of those things. She refused to tie my shoes, it frustrated her too much. And never in my life did I ever see her cooking in a kitchen. Once do I recall her making me hot chocolate but it came from a box. Instead she spent her time taking us to Von Maur for hours or giving us pocket knives and telling us to "go widdle wood or something."
Before she was my Grandma, she was just Bernie. Part first generation Volga German immigrant and part Wyomingite, she would grow up in Cheyenne in a converted bus. At the the time my favorite picture was taken, her parents owned a pony cart business. When I was younger she told me that she remembered heating up bricks in a fire and placing them under her mattress to keep it warm.
She learned to fly planes, something almost unheard of in a time where women were considered "barefoot and pregnant." But she learned to do this thing that no one thought she could do, and why did she learn it?
Because she could. Because there was no reason why she couldn't learn to do it.
She did all of these things that no one thought she could do, such as installing carpet with my Mom all by themselves. Without the help of men.
Grandma Bernie put my brothers and I through training and that meant we had to learn manners. She made us open doors for strangers, order own food, do all the things kids are supposed to learn.
But the one thing that she taught me that I will remember for the rest of my life, even in the darkest of times, is that I can do anything. I can do anything simply because of who I am. I am third generation of Volga German immigrants which is basically a culture that no one wants to accept, my family came to America with nothing, not even English. And yet, with all those set backs; they built something for themselves. They paved the way so that the next generations would have something to walk on, even if that walk is rocky. Grandma Bernie taught me the things that I needed to walk with my head high. Sometimes I often find myself saying, "do you not know who my Grandma is?" And then I realize that the answer is no, they don't. I can't help but laugh sometimes.
My Grandma died when I was nine years old, ironically on my parent's wedding anniversary as well.
My Mom and I have now have matching marigold tattoos for Bernie. And we have a little saying that allows to keep Grandma's spirit alive;
I love you from here to Wyoming.