The Fighting Finn

From the time she was a young woman, my grandmother had to work. She worked as a domestic. She operated the Teacups ride for a small carnival, pretty much any low-paying tough job you can imagine, she has been there and done that. Inez Illona Lindqvist married my grandfather, James Arthur Risher, when he was working in a steel mill in Canton, Ohio. He was a hard-drinking, belligerent, bear of a man at 6 feet 6 inches tall. If there is anyone who had it tougher than grandma, it was my grandpa Jim.

Their marriage was reportedly turbulent when they were younger. My grandfather’s partying ways did not sit well with my grandma who must’ve even then had a vision of becoming a businesswoman. At first, she went with him dancing and drinking until the sun came up the next morning. But she fell away from that life while my grandfather was like a moth to a flame. One of her favorite stories is about my grandfather refusing to leave a bar one night. Without saying a word to him, she went down there and let the air out of the tires on his truck.

Grandma Inez loved to tell us stories about her people, the Finns, fighting the Russians for their independence. She said the Finns would dress in white jumpsuits and bury themselves under snow waiting for the charging Russian forces. Then they would ambush the Russian soldiers, jumping out of hiding and killing them using only a knife. I could see the blood red stains on the white snow. Note to self – do not mess with grandma.

My great grandfather was from Helsinki, Finland. He was something like a merchant marine who left home at the age of 14. His wife never learned to speak much English so both my grandmother and my father spoke Finnish in her home. I didn’t really understand the characteristics of the Finnish people until I had an opportunity to live in Europe as a student. Of the Scandinavian people, the Finns are by far the darkest of the lot both in coloring and temperament. Although frequently grouped with the Swedes and Norwegians, Finns are a different breed. The Finns I met were all highly intelligent but definitely morose in their worldview. I’m thinking of a word in German, weltschmertz, defined as a sorrow or sadness over the present or future evils or woes of the world. I tell my husband I am a pessimistic optimist. I hope for the best but am frequently let down. I think this is inherently Finnish.

Some years ago I saw a story on Sixty Minutes about the Finnish cell phone maker Nokia and how that company reflects another Finnish cultural trait. Apparently, the Finns avoid personal contact like the plague, hence, the insanely popular cell phone. Another Finnish pastime, the sauna, would seem an experience that would force intimacy. Sitting naked in a sweatbox would surely lead to conversation. But the Finns don’t choose to use this time opening up to their fellow man. Instead, this popular joke dictates sauna behavior.

One day Pekka and Toivonen meet after a long time apart and they go to a sauna in the woods. They drink vodka for a couple of hours. Pekka asks how Toivonen has been doing. Toivonen says nothing, but continues drinking for a couple of hours. Then, slowly, he replies, 'Did we come here to talk, or did we come here to drink?'

The one subject grandma will discuss at length is politics. She is very much a liberal in her views, typical of a long-standing tradition of Texas Democrats. She’s so liberal, I’m not sure she would even play well with other Democrats. Her father was a Socialist and actually headed up a Socialist group in Ohio when they first moved to the States. She liked to scour the newspaper everyday, looking for evidence of her conspiracy theories. Don’t even mention George Bush to her (father or son). She will launch into a tirade about this or that, usually something along the lines of “the working class gets no respect.” All Republicans are out to help the rich, end of story, no discussion. Sadly, she's lost her sight to macular degeneration and she is unable to read the newspaper. She listens to the news, but I don’t think it has the same appeal. It’s just the buzz of the television going all day long.

The “store” was the furniture store she eventually opened and ran for 55 years, something quite out of the ordinary for a woman in the 1950’s. She was the salesperson and my grandfather delivered the furniture. When we were kids she would let us come to the store with her and “work”. Mainly we would just sit around pretending to write sales receipts. She had one of those prehistoric machines that dispensed the paper in triplicate. You write something on the paper, pull out the receipt and give it a good rip. I’m not sure what our game did to her accounting system because the receipts were all numbered in sequence. She didn’t seem to mind.

Next we would wait for our lunch break, an activity I would liken to a long car ride. We repeatedly asked if it was lunchtime until she caved and took us. We also wanted to avoid my grandpa at all costs. He was a tough guy and any run-ins with grandpa might result in our actually having to do work.

On weekends, many weekends, my grandmother would take us out to Six Flags over Texas. We had a season pass to the coolest thing Arlington, Texas has to offer a young kid. I really never considered her age until I became an adult myself. At 40, a day alone with my five-year old boy would put me out of commission. My grandmother took me and my younger brother out to that theme park all the time, rode all the rides with us, and never even blinked.

I think she was in her 60’s at that point, going with us on tortuous rides like the Spindle Top. I don’t think this type of ride is even legal anymore. Basically, you cram a bunch of people in a huge barrel that spins around faster and faster until the G-force slams your body against the wall. Then the floor drops down and you're suspended in the air, stuck to the wall like a bug. No seatbelts or safety equipment of any kind were there on the Spindle Top. Add some candy and soda to the mix and you are looking at one hell of a long day with two wild kids.

One of her other favorite activities is laundry. It must be genetic because I am also a laundry fanatic. My brother’s friend Pete tells a story about coming home late night after hours of drinking in Boston. My grandma was lying on the floor between the washer and dryer, only her legs sticking out like the witch from Oz trapped under a house. So Pete and my brother run inside the house thinking she has had a stroke or something. She pops her head up and says, “Oh I was just cleaning up some lint under the dryer. You boys want something to eat?” My mother swears she broke every dryer we ever had. They finally began unplugging the dryer or removing the fuse for the dryer and telling her it was broken. Sad, really, considering she probably bought us the dryer in the first place. She just liked clean clothes, the smell of them and folding them with origami-like precision. One time I caught her sewing a hole in her pantyhose. She’d lived through the Depression, probably already poor when that catastrophe hit. She always told us to take care of our clothes. She would iron our jeans if we didn’t stop her. She had a thing about wearing shabby clothes.

She also hates food waste of any kind. My stepmother found her going through the garbage after dinner one night, retrieving pieces of uneaten food that were still “good” in her mind. At this point she’d actually done well in her life. The store was doing a brisk business and she owned several homes that were rental properties. It just bugged her to see that perfectly good food sitting in the garbage. Thus began the ritual of clearing the garbage out of the house after every meal, before she could take a look. My husband and I call her the food pusher. One time I had some friends stay over and we were eating breakfast. My grandma kept urging one of the guys to eat the last piece of bacon. He politely declined several times until she actually took her finger and gently flicked it on to his plate. Food pusher.

At the end of her life, Inez is alone. My grandfather died a few years ago. They’d been married for over 60 years, together every day, at home and at work. At the end, my grandfather seemed more like a schoolboy in love with her. I don’t think she really considered what life without him would become. She had to give up the store. Her purse was stolen right off the desk one day. The floors were hard cement and she was finding it more and more difficult to take the pain in her legs and feet. She couldn’t see to drive the old yellow Cadillac just down the road.

Finally, my father decided to close the place. He found out some relatives were skimming money from her, ordering loads of furniture that could never be sold. Grandma had actually run a cash business all that time. She hated debt. And now she was swimming in it thanks to them.

My grandfather waited his whole life to retire and never did because she would not give up the store. He said no wife of his was going to work everyday while he sat at home doing nothing. I know he cajoled her, tried everything he could to get her to stop. He’d had enough--enough with the customers and the lies about where the check was and hauling Barcaloungers up flights of stairs. But her whole life was tied up in that business. Her friends were long-time customers. She worked with her family. Who’s to say what’s right? What makes a happy life, when you look back at the end of that life? He wanted to go fishing. She just wanted to work.

I came to visit my grandfather in the hospital shortly after a botched hip surgery. He said, “You know, you’re just like her. Watch out.” My guess is he saw what would happen to her, knew her well enough to know that she would never quit until she was dragged out of the store and by that time it would be too late to really enjoy anything else in her life. I guess I am like her in many ways. I am an entrepreneur. I have one son. I’m married and plan to stay that way. I do work a lot, sometimes to the point of illness. I am afraid of relying too heavily on anyone other than myself.

When my son was born, my husband and I were both starting out in our business. At five months, I took my son to daycare and he went everyday all day. I regret that choice. I regret not spending more time with him as a baby. So I am trying to learn from my mistakes and maybe those of my grandmother. Life is not always about work. It’s easy to get caught up in that race, particularly as a woman. Never let your guard down, never stop or someone else will take your place. And oh the perils of being a housewife – of not “working outside the home”.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this story. I just started writing about her late one night when I realized this is the end of her life. She's fallen several times. Her doctor thinks she’s had a minor stroke but he’s not sure if her disorientation is the result of stroke or dementia or maybe even a concussion from one of her falls.

She’s just not the same person anymore. And I wanted to remember some of the things about her before my own memory blurs more than it has. I am trying to understand what I should learn from her. What was my grandfather trying to say? Work less. Let others take care of you. Know when to fold. Who knows?

Before we got married my husband told me he was high maintenance. When you first fall in love you avoid hearing these things because they detract from the pretty picture. Eleven years later, it’s hard to ignore. And I am sure it is equally hard to miss the annoying things about me. Is that what I did? I told him I didn’t want anyone to take care of me. Well guess what? I may have lied about that part. I secretly hoped I would find someone stronger than me, someone who would offer to take care of me although I would probably decline.

Or maybe I should learn to be cared for in the manner it is offered. Is that the lesson? Because my grandmother has no choice now. She must accept care as it is given. And rather than accept that fate, she has decided to sit alone, quietly in her room.

I know this and this makes me sad. In the end, we are alone in this life. Sometimes our beloved spouse dies. Sometimes we live in a world of our own, no longer in the realm of the living. We become a burden to our children. We grow ill and incontinent and messy and difficult. These are not traits welcomed in the highly efficient culture of today.

So I suppose if I have anything to learn from Inez it is to live a life that pleases you, because in the end your thoughts will turn to that life. And the only comfort you may receive will be the knowledge that before you landed in this pseudo-world of assisted living you were once a ferocious warrior -- a businesswoman back in the days of home economics. The person in the wheelchair or the person on the gurney is the shell of what remains. You are still the beautiful young woman in a faded photograph. And no one can take that from you.