Our Michele

The following post is based on an interview I had with my grandmother (my mother’s mother) several week ago. I called her after coffee and breakfast had commenced in Singapore and after dinner dishes were carefully put away in Chicago. I imagined her sitting in her floral duster with a cup of tea steeping on the table and some biscotti crumbs littering her saucer. She spoke easily and comfortably as I posed the questions and I could tell she was eager to talk about my mom. I decided to write the entry from my grandmother’s perspective as it seemed to flow better in first person. The post is based on her interview answers and I have interpreted feelings and events where I saw fit. She has read the post and has given it her blessing so I feel it is authentic and possesses integrity.

Our Michele

I will never forget the day she was born. It was a Sunday and her birth was easy. She wasn’t even 5lbs and it felt like a miracle. “Don’t sound so crazy,” declared my sister “everyone has a baby!” But of course I wasn’t everyone.

I never thought I would have a baby, but after two years of marriage we were pregnant. This was 1949 and everything was different in the birthing ward. We found ourselves at Loretto hospital in Chicago where husbands were prohibited from entering the delivery room and where nuns called the shots. “Sister, I think she can have some pain meds”, suggested the doctor on duty. “No! She can wait!” commanded the nun. Shots were definitely being called.

I remember the woman next to me screaming and writhing about with pain. “If you would stop this and relax you would feel better,” retorted sister-in-charge. This brought on a monologue of swearing that would rival the likes of a gangster rapper. I was embarrassed.

Despite nuns tramping in their bossy boots and patients targeting them with expletives we soon had our baby.

Mother’s intuition told me that we were having a son and we had prepared to name him Michael after my husband’s father. It was evident that intuition cannot always be trusted as I swaddled my little girl. Michele, the female version of Michael, seemed the most natural alternative. In later years, when I saw the headstone at my father-in-law’s grave site I was surprised to see that his name was actually spelled Michele, the Italian spelling for Michael. She was named after her grandfather and she was Our Michele.

If the delivery was easy the homecoming was a bit more of a challenge. She was small and treated us to 6 months of colic. It was a revolving door of formulas but we made it through and our reward was in sight. Michele was a good child. She left the bottle early and practically toilet trained herself . We only used cloth diapers and she hated to be wet. She would want to be changed incessantly and soon grew tired of the constant diaper drama. She practically trained herself. Yes. I am repeating it again because in 85 years of living I am sure this sounds like a case of faulty memory or time-lapse embellishment. It’s not.

Michele developed into a bright and beautiful little girl. She walked early and by 3 she was adventuring around the corner to buy milk from the neighborhood grocer. It was a different time. A time when your community was extended family and watching your little girl from your kitchen window was enough. She soon took a liking to shopping and mothering her younger sister. She gave in often, especially when baby sis was sick. She did this not out of desperation or frustration but a need to help and to protect.

Soon her adventures bloomed into more than just trips around the block as fashion, friends, dating and travel began to take center stage. She jetted off to Europe after High School and returned with gorgeous English frocks. Furthermore, her hair-capades have become somewhat of family legend. She was known to leave the house in various wigs or regularly return home sporting a surprise cut. Once she arrived from the salon with such a short crop that her father questioned if she had actually paid for the cut. When it was revealed that she explicitly asked for this specific style her father just shrugged and walked away. A similar short “do” shocked her future husband who was picking her up for a blind date. “Her hair was so short I thought she might have been sick and had to undergo surgery!” he exclaimed. “I was a little worried my buddy set me up on a sympathy date!” he added. On yet another occasion she was sent home from Immaculate Heart of Mary, her High School at the time. The infraction? Hair-ratting. Enough said and yes….even though the nuns donned their habits everyday, they really wore the pants there as well.

At 14 Michele went to work in a pastry shop. She was an artist at decorating the pastries and wrapping the desserts, a skill she would perfect over the years. Her family has been known to poke fun at her over this. If you ever baked with Michele you knew that the frosting, drizzles, sparkles, and sprinkles were most important and had to be applied with painstaking delicacy. We resorted to calling her meticulous but in truth this was often a euphemism for annoying. Clearly, her exquisite bakery skills could not be abandoned even when it came to family cookie day. It has also been said that she kept the Raimondi’s Bakery shop counter the cleanest it had ever been. Another skill she would transfer to her own home and use to drive her loved ones insane. Gift wrapping brought on the same love for detail. Everyone knew which present was from Michele because it looked as though it had been sent directly from the department store.

At 16 she was punching her card at JC Penny’s with her girls. She was a hard worker and the friends she made were connected to her for the rest of her life. In fact, some of her closest friends before she died are those she romped around with on the elementary school playground. That kind of friendship is rare.

Boys came and went as easily as the hairstyles and she had no interest in committing until she was ready. “Don’t call me to meet him till that boy comes around more than once,” warned her father. Clearly, she dated like she wore her wigs. Lets try it on, have some fun, but I’m not committing to anything serious at the moment.

More than anything it was evident that Michele was dedicated to her family. We lived next door to one grandmother and shared our home with her other set of grandparents. She’d graciously endure her grandpa slurping down his raw egg every morning and she’d politely listen to his lengthy stories. I am not talking about light- hearted fairytales or star-crossed folklore either. I am talking some heavy stuff like Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”. Michele thought he was making up the epic poem until she came across it on her own in Humanities class. Even throughout high school she shared a bedroom with her grandmother, an act of kindness I can’t see today’s teenagers signing up for, at least not without a lot of drama and a long list of negotiations.

And so as I celebrate highlights of Michele’s birth and childhood I remember that it is October again, Michele’s birthday month. I am reminded of her very first birthday and how she stuffed that big cake into her little mouth, Dressel’s whipped cream cake, our family’s favorite. I miss her everyday. I shop at Caputo’s alone now when I used to stroll the aisles and wrestle the deli counter with Michele. I don’t stop at Panera for a post-Caputo’s-shopping lunch because I used to with Michele. I think of her every single day and I look forward to the day we are reunited. Happy happy birthday to Our Michele.