The Greatest Gift I Never Received

The Greatest Gift I Never Received

Carol Hendrickson

I was her first, and for a very long time, her only granddaughter. Some of my earliest recollections of my maternal grandmother, Hanora “Nonie” Ruede, were of her showering me with affection, attention and gifts, often from afar. When I was a young child, she and her two sisters, my great aunts “Mamie” (Mary) and “Miggie” (Margaret), along with Miggie’s crippled daughter Catherine, arrived at each of my birthday parties laden with an ornately-decorated cake from West High Bakery, special gifts for me, and token gifts or a few coins for my growing number of younger siblings. Over time they did the same for every one of my eight brothers and sisters. The women in my mother’s family had a tradition of making birthdays and holidays especially fun for children. Without fail they did a magnificent job of it. 

Grandma and Grandpa Ruede (my mother’s parents) relocated from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Rolla, Missouri for a few years when I was three to six years old. Our growing family lived in their home during the years they were away. From Missouri, Grandma would send the most creative Christmas packages I ever received. My parents would allow me to open just one gift (Grandma’s box) on Christmas Eve and I looked forward to those occasions even more than the impending visits from Santa Clause. Full of cheap goodies really, but lots of them, I would squeal with delight as I unraveled the yards and yards of flimsy crepe-paper balls that contained layers of hidden trinkets, all “Made in Japan.” When I was four years old Grandma sent a box containing a 10-inch tortoise that lived in our yard for two years before it went missing.

Eventually Grandpa passed away, but Grandma Nonie continued to live alone in her little house on Eighth South in Salt Lake City with her two daughters (my mother Darlene and her younger sister Lucille) each living within two blocks of her – one in either direction. In my early twenties when I was a stewardess with what was then Western Airlines, I took Grandma Nonie, then in her seventies, on her first-ever airplane ride.  We flew to Seattle to visit her sister, Mamie. I’ll never forget Grandma’s response to seeing that the airplane had actually left the runway and was in the air. In awe, she exclaimed, “We are in the air! There is nothing under our feet!”

In my late twenties, and Grandma Nonie then in her eighties, I visited her often and listened patiently as she told me the same stories over and over … and over. She frequently called me by my mother’s name and it was clear that she was exhibiting signs of dementia, a condition that had affected many of her immediate family and ancestors. She would sometimes walk me into her tiny kitchen, open the cupboards and ask me if there was anything I would like to keep. She helped me select the family heirloom port wine glasses that I have since given to my brother Greg, and several unique hand-painted plates and vases. She once looked at me sweetly and said, “Carol Ann, you can have anything I own.” But she was surprised when I opted for her warped, bruised and battered 5-foot library table that was stored in a big shed (really it was a very old house) in her back yard. It was about 14 inches deep and had a total of five legs, two on each end and one in the middle. I had my boyfriend haul it away in his pickup truck. Bewildered, Grandma watched him drive away and said, “Carol Ann, that young man just drove away with my table!” Now, beautifully refurbished, the library table holds a place of honor inside the front door of my townhouse and I treasure it. My mother once told me that the chunk of wood that had been broken out of one of the five (5) feet of that beautiful library table was due to her (as a young child) falling and hitting her nose on the foot of the table. Both the foot of the table and her nose were broken!

In early June of 1957, as a gift upon completion of sixth grade at Edison Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Grandma Nonie presented me with a little square Brownie Hawkeye camera.  I still have photos that I took with   it that very day. Christmas arrived right on time that year and you can imagine my surprise and disappointment at receiving nothing from my normally generous grandmother. My younger siblings all received gifts, but I did not.  I whispered to my mother “Did Grandma forget me?” “No!” she snapped, “You didn’t send her a thank you note for the last gift she gave you, so you are not getting a thing.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather.  I was stunned! I was hurt. I was embarrassed.  Then I was mad; I was mad at my mother. My mother prided herself in teaching me how to be “mother’s little helper,” how to cook, how to sew, how to be a good babysitter, how to be a perfect Girl Scout. She took credit for my perfect grades in school as if they were her own. How was it then that she overlooked teaching me that all-important lesson on the fine art of writing a thank you note?  She knew Grandma’s expectations; I did not. Of course I was overjoyed with the little camera, but it didn’t occur to me to write Grandma a note without guidance or someone, i.e., my mother, teaching me how. I was a good student, a quick learner. No, my mother didn’t teach me that valuable, life-long lesson -- my Grandmother did -- along with dishing out the biggest, most bitter dose of “tough love” I ever had to swallow. But learn that lesson I did, and today I thank her dearly for it.

Old fashioned as it seems in these days of text messages, e-mails and cell phones, I like to write thank you notes to my friends, my family, and especially to my grandchildren. I can only hope that by my example they might learn the importance of expressing gratitude. It makes my heart swell when, occasionally, I receive a thank you note from one of them. It is on those few occasions that I remember with gratitude my dear Grandma Nonie and the greatest gift I never received.