My Eagle Woman
A story about the best grandma and her girls.
April of this year was the two year anniversary of my grandma’s passing. She’s been on my mind a lot lately. Her name was Regina, but we knew her as Gina. We never called her Grandma, though now I often refer to her as Grandma Gina in my head. My sister, Maggie, Gina’s oldest grandchild had called her ‘Gina’ as a baby and it stuck. Two of our cousins tried to get ‘Nana’ to work for a few years, but when Maggie and I told them that wasn’t her name, they started calling her Gina too.
When my grandpa, who we all knew as Bobo, passed away in 1996, Gina was living alone in Mesa, Arizona while the rest of the family was spread across the country in Missouri, Massachusetts, California, and New York. I don’t know if it was she who suggested that the four older girl cousins, made up of two sets of sisters, visit the following year or if our parents planned on off loading us for convenience, but the summers we spent with Gina are to this day, some of my favorite.
In the summer of 1997, the four girls had our first extended trip to Mesa. Maggie was 12 years old, Devin was 11, I was 10, and Jordan was 8. Gina was 64 at the time and now that I’m older, I recognize how brave she was to take on the challenge of four young grandchildren staying with her for a month at a time.
Although we had a fairly wide range of ages between us, each of us had a role in our cousinship and an incredible bond. We didn’t live near each other and didn’t see each other much outside of our summer trips, but we were all good friends and would immediately fall into alignment when reunited.
Maggie was the President, fully in charge in her mind, planning what and when we would do anything. Devin was the Vice President and the peacemaker of the group, quietly offering alternative ideas if there was push back to the President’s plans, but rarely claiming them as her own. I made sure sunscreen and snacks made the travel bags and guaranteed the dog was walked and fed. Jordan was our baby, tagging along with little responsibilities or input, but plenty of spunk.
During our first few visits, Gina was still working part-time as an Executive Assistant to the owner of Plymouth Tube, a stainless steel tubing company she had worked at for over 30 years. Her office was just a short walk away from her condo so even though she’d head there before we woke up, she was basically still within earshot of the four children at home.
We spent the mornings without Gina feeding ourselves breakfast and watching the Price is Right. Eventually, we’d grow tired of the tv and would all go into our shared bedroom where we’d bounce back and forth on the double beds, playing a game of “Orphanage” we had invented years before. I don’t know why little girls are obsessed with pretending they’re orphans, but if I had to blame anyone for it - it’s Annie.
At the start of the trip, Gina would take us to a magical land to any child — Sam’s Club. We’d go for lunch, aka the endless supply of free samples, and lie to her about what our parents let us eat at home in order to get the good snacks. Goldfish, Oreos and the Little Debbie variety packs were among the treats. "Oh yes, our parents let us eat ice cream every night,” we'd fib in the frozen food aisle. Along with the snacks and five pound pack of Twizzler’s, she would also get us a mountain of fruit.
On one of our first summer vacations, the youngest of us - Jordan - was cutting an oversized watermelon by herself. In hindsight, maybe the 8-year old shouldn’t have been handling the knife solo. All of a sudden, one of the halves hydroplaned across the cutting board on the juice, dropped the few feet from the counter, and smashed on the tile floor. Red melon and black seeds covered the cabinets, counters, appliances and everything in between. The three older girls burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, embarrassing her terribly, causing her to hide under the bed where she quietly sang the "Nobody Likes Me” song to the bottom of a mattress. After multiple tries and plenty of persuasion tactics, Vice President and kind big sister, Devin, eventually convinced her to come out and be friends with us again. We’re still laughing about it 27 years later. We also still don’t let Jordan cut the watermelons unsupervised.
Every day when Gina would return from her half day of work, she would take us to the pool, where we’d spend the next four to five hours working on synchronized jumps into the deep end or see who could do an underwater handstand the longest. We’d lounge on the rafts while Gina read her novel and when we were all ready, we’d run home shoeless, not only racing each other but also racing the scalding Arizona heat on our feet.
At night after dinner, Gina would sit at the head of the table with the four of us spread around, each with an empty and clean sour cream or yogurt container full of pennies. She taught us how to play 5-card draw and 7-card stud, letting us know deuces were wild. She had a hunger for gambling, but since you couldn’t take four children under the age of 12 to the casino, she was stuck playing penny poker at the kitchen table while we visited. Our parents were thrilled to discover that we were each cardsharp by the first summer’s end, eager to show them what we learned from our grandma.
Our month-long trips took place for four years in a row. Devin never got off a plane without a drink spilled on her by Jordan, who we once lost in the giant Phoenix airport at the start of one of the trips. We almost got heat exhaustion a few times, but that was a risk you’d take when you send four children to Arizona in July. I stepped on a red anthill in sandals one year and writhed in pain while the three others laughed at me and Gina yelled at me to hold still for the picture. We threw socks at the fans for fun.
Each summer, we would eat pizza at least once at a place called Organ Stop Pizza. It was mediocre pizza at best, but during dinner, an 8,000 pound organ would rise from the center of the stage and entertain us. It was a highlight to every summer, especially for Gina, and an occasion worth wearing a matching outfit she would buy the four of us every year. On the weekends, we visited the pop up flea market and adored the handmade Arizona jewelry and Kokopelli art.
When Maggie was 16 and Jordan was 12, we had our last extended trip to Gina’s together. She had a live-in boyfriend by that point, who was a nice man but changed the dynamic we had known. Understandably, he didn’t seem to like the chaos and volume that came along with the four of us together in a small condo. To be fair, we were all starting to also out grow the isolated summers, no longer pretending to be orphans, more and more interested in boys, and what our friends at home might be doing with their summers.
Throughout college, this time by myself, I would visit Gina and Les over Spring Break. When other kids were off to Cancun for drinking and plenty of extracurricular activities, I headed to the retirement community for sunshine and one-on-one time with my Gina. On the first day of my visit as either a nineteen or twenty-year old, she and a group of ten of her friends had planned a day trip to the horse tracks. Her gambling didn’t stop at just cards or penny slots at the casino. It carried over to any form. When I won $20 in one of the races, she was frustrated that I wouldn’t walk up the stairs to collect my own winnings. I tried to explain that I wasn’t 21 yet and it was illegal for me to even be participating, but since I was a veteran penny poker player at this point, she didn’t understand the problem.
In January of 2020, the four of us cousins were able to visit Gina together for one final time, this time bringing my mom Teri, and Gina’s first and only great-grandchildren, Thea (3 years) and Maddie (9 months). Gina had fallen a few months prior to the trip and injured her back and hip and had also been diagnosed with an unforgiving and rapidly developing case of dementia. Since I lived within driving distance, I was able to visit every six months or so and witnessed her decline more and more with each trip. I warned the others that she might not recognize them and that she was in a great deal of pain, but when she saw the four of us together again and met the two little girls, years melted away immediately.
We had surprised her with the young girls at breakfast and she had a look of pure shock and joy when they walked into the restaurant. Afterward, we all went back to the condo we had spent at least two summers in as children ourselves, this time with the great grandchildren in the center of the spotlight, lifting Gina’s heart. She rolled oranges we had picked from the tree outside of her garage over and over again with the little girls giggling endlessly, until we convinced her that she and the little ones could probably use a nap.
We spent the next few days popping over to her house and watched her light up again and again with every visit. I have so many incredible memories of our Gina, but the memory of her meeting the youngest members of the family she created is at the top of my favorites.
My last visit with Gina was with my mom in January of 2022. She was in an assisted living center at the time and her dementia had progressed so much so that she wasn’t able to communicate or recognize much anymore. She was sitting on a couch in the front room by herself when we arrived. When she rose her head and saw my mom, she looked her square in the eyes, her face softening with some recognition and said, “I know you.” For a brief moment, we got to see our Gina again and that moment is like nothing I can explain. Our eyes filled with tears as my mom returned the phrase to Gina - “I know you too.”
Gina passed away peacefully in her sleep three months later on April 26, 2022. I knew the day was coming, but it was heavy news nonetheless. I took the day off of work and drove to an area near Pagosa Springs, Colorado that I’ve found to be healing over the years. As I cried in the car by myself, the song “Evil Woman” by ELO randomly played on my playlist and I laughed a great belly laugh. Gina was truthful, quick to point out if you gained any weight or her fear for me switching jobs yet again, but her criticism never came with evil intent. She was never an evil woman.
When the song came on, a bald eagle dropped from the sky and almost hit my car. Shocked, I slammed on my brakes, narrowly avoiding the young bird. Again, I burst out laughing, but eventually caught my breath, and apologized to Gina for the song. I said hello and thanked her for being here as she soared higher and higher into the sky. She wasn’t an evil woman, but now she’d be known to me as my Eagle Woman.
I saw the eagle in April of 2023, the one year anniversary month of losing our Gina, and then again just last month. This year, she was perched on a small pine tree, overlooking her valley. I walked within range of my camera lens, took a few photos of my eagle woman, and wished her a good summer. It was the least I could do after she gave me some of the best summers of my life.
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