Stories to tell

Grammy Ida still sends me valentine cards.
In her 80s, she still volunteers at the nursing home.
She says somebody’s got to help out the “old people.”
She’d never touch a drink and thinks gambling is a sin,
But when she wins money at bingo she doesn’t feel guilty.
Grammy Ida has a jolly laugh and cries whenever we tell her goodbye.

Grammy Ida told me the first racist joke I ever heard
And what a “Puerto Rican” was.
They were the people who came in and ruined Reading, Pennsylvania.
She sent me $25 for my birthday this year
And made woven refrigerator magnets with plastic and yarn
For her great granddaughter.
Grammy Ida eats half the cookies she bakes for the nursing home.

Grammy Ida has nothing but praise for her oldest grandson
And criticism for my younger cousins.
She speaks in the wacky non-sequiturs of aging
And doesn’t know it.
She was a troublemaker in her day.
She never used to tell us anything about her life,
But old age has loosened her tongue.
Grammy Ida has stories to tell.