A Wedding in Black

From the time I was very young, summer vacations were spent over the bridge and across the Allegheny, at my maternal grandma's house, a redbrick two-story with a bit of ivy on the front and a small gray cement porch on the side. The house was not at all like the traditional farmhouse where Grandma grew up. Great-grandpa's house was painted wood with a wrap-around porch and plenty of untilled acres for horses. Grandma and grandpa's house was red brick with ivy and a large vegetable farm. The farm was grandpa's passion; he'd till the soil and go over seed catalogs by the hour. That's how their marriage worked, grandpa had the garden and grandma had the house, and every night they had dinner together in the kitchen, at the table.

One particular afternoon, grandma and I were sitting at the kitchen table as we often did (nothing unusual there). The table was a lovely, heavy wooden thing, oak, I think; grandma always kept it covered with a tablecloth, but the legs looked like oak. One side was against the wall, leaving the other three for seating. Grandma was sitting at one end, and I was at the opposite end. Behind and slightly off to her left stood the kitchen counter and sink, which had a little window above it. On the side that was against the wall was another window. The windows created a kind of glow behind her.

The view out that side-wall window was a gravel driveway leading down to the main road: on one side of the driveway grew a big leafy tree, perfect for providing shade in summer months. Grandpa and I would sit under the branches of that tree for hours, wiping the dirt off freshly picked vegetables, getting them ready for sale. “People don't buy dirty vegetables,” he would say. On the other side of the driveway and a little closer to the house, grew a small pine tree. Grandma said they planted the little tree the day I was born, but this story is grandma's, not mine. I'm fairly certain that she told me about the tree to deepen our already close connection as eldest daughters. Mom, grandma, and I were all the first daughters of our generations, and grandma sometimes told me truths of her generation with hopes that I would have a different understanding of things.

Listening to her stories was like time travel. She'd start right in, and before I could catch a breath, I'd be transported to another time, like looking intensely into a viewfinder, through her words, I could experience the life she had long ago, before I was born. Grandma looked at her coffee, then across the table at me, her sapphire blue eyes had a mischievous sparkle that said this time, there was a different kind of story coming.

Grandma Laura

Your grandfather and I eloped. My father didn't want us to get married, I didn't ask why; he wouldn't have told me, and the reason wouldn't have made a difference to us anyway. I was young, determined, and we were committed to making a life with each other. My father was not someone to be argued with; he wasn't the same gentile grandfatherly man that you know. After he told your grandfather that permission for us to be married would not be given, your grandpa and I made the decision to elope. We didn't think about it being romantic or anything like that; we just knew that this would be the only way we could peacefully get married.

It was an adventure, and you know how I love adventure.

I remember it was February, and the snow was falling. You'll remember, as I've told you many times. How much I love the color black. Even as a child, it was my favorite color, but they wouldn't let me wear it except at funerals. Well, since we were already breaking with convention, I got dressed in my funeral best, black from head to foot. It was cold but beautiful. I say head to foot because I wore open-toed shoes and the snow got in, and my feet were so cold I thought ice might form before we got out of the car. I kept fussing with the snow and made a puddle on the floor of the car, which made it worse. None of this mattered to your grandfather, who was smiling ear to ear.

After the short ceremony, I went home to mine, and grandpa went back to his house. We didn't tell my father for about 4 months. I didn't want to tell him until we had our own place because I knew he would be angry, and I didn't want to end up sleeping in the barn. The anger must have worn off because my father let your grandfather install the bathroom in the family home.

There's a saying: married in black, you'll wish yourself back. I can tell you that's not true because I never did.

Grandma smiled, went quiet, and I knew the storytelling was done. We sat there, lost in time, for a few minutes. I could hear Grandpa coming up the basement stairs. He was bringing a pizza for a treat; he'd do that sometimes, as a surprise.

Imagining my great-grandfather angry like that was difficult for me because I'd never seen him that way. He was my great-grandfather. He dyed his hair because his skin was dark and he didn't like the way he looked with gray hair. He always smiled when I came to visit, and we'd sit in the living room...just sit. I liked to watch him smoke the pipe he kept by his chair because it smelled like cherry wood. When he walked, it was usually with a cane. Great-grandfather was a native American and had gone through a lot of things that he didn't want to talk about, but sometimes he would tell me snippets of his life. The cane wasn't because of his age; he was hurt while working on the railroad. The workers coupled the cars by hand back then, and one day, when he was coupling the cars and slipped, his leg was injured, but somehow saved.