In Memory of Joyce MacLachlan

Today is the eighth anniversary of Joyce MacLachlan’s passing. Every year I seem to wake up on this day with a little bit of gloom. This year is no different. The good thing about time, though, seems to be that every year the gloom is far less consuming and I am left with all the fantastic memories of a grandmother who loved her grandchildren very much. I am also left with memories of a woman who really lived her life.

As a child you adore those people who spoil you and she was no different. There was something special about a grandmother. Tripper and I loved to go to her house and spend time doing things only she would let us do (eat lots of candy and drink lots of pop). Even more so, there was something special that she and I shared, though. You see, I am the only girl on the MacLachlan side. There was something special there about Grandma and me. It’s not that Tripper and Nick were any less in her eyes, but I can’t explain the special bond that we shared. It was only after she died that I really came to see how similar our lives were. Many of the activities I was involved with in high school paralleled her life.

Some of the best things about Joyce: Every year she would have Tripp and me over around the holidays to make cookies. We would make the dough from scratch and the frosting from powdered sugar and food coloring. She always let us put as much frosting and sprinkles as we wanted. She always let us try each kind of cookie. Her favorite cookies to make and eat were the peanut butter sugar cookies with the Hershey kisses set right in the center. Grandma was the first person to teach me how to use a rolling pin. Grandma used to take us on a summer vacation each and every year. Sometimes we would go to King’s Island. Other times to Cedar Point. The best times ever were Toronto and Chicago. My first musical was thanks to her. The boys got to pick a baseball game, but she knew how much I loved the music of Cats. One morning she opened up the hotel room phone book and simply looked up the ticket office to the theater. The next thing I knew we were on our way to the matinee showing of Cats. I have a feeling Nick and Tripper were not nearly as impressed, but it meant the world to me.

After my grandfather died, Joyce devoted her time to friends and family and having fun. On two separate occasions she traveled to Europe. I remember getting letters and postcards from her and dreaming of one day retracing her footsteps. I always wished I could have gone with her. Then, one year the opportunity came. It was about two years after my parents divorced. My high school marching band was traveling to London, England for the New Year’s parade. For the first time since the divorce, my grandma came to our apartment (with my dad and Tripper) to open presents. The first present I was given was a small box. The excitement was amazing! Inside this box were three passports- my dad’s, my brother’s and my grandma’s! It turns out that they were leaving for London that afternoon and would meet me when I arrived two days later. I am so glad I had the chance to spend that small amount of time in London with her. I swore to her that I would go back. I finally did, about six months after she died. I lived in London for six weeks while studying with Michigan State. When I look back at my journal from that time it is filled with wonder and tinged with sadness. It was wonderful to be back, but so sad knowing that of all the letters I wished I could send, the one person I would have wanted to write to was no longer there to receive my letters.

I used to love going over to her house for a week or a weekend in the summer. Free of school and work for short periods of time I would sit in her house and read. She used to tell me that she wouldn’t be offended if I thought I was “too old for Grandma” and didn’t come by so often. This always struck me as odd. My grandma was my best friend. She was the person in the family who, not only loved me unconditionally, but she accepted every little thing about me. She would listen to any music I brought over, unless it had curse words. She was the only woman I knew, over 60, who liked Toad the Wet Sprocket! We would get up on Sunday mornings and drive to Meijer to go grocery shopping. For lunch we would always stop at McDonald’s. Sometimes, when we got home, we would take Ben for a walk and stop and get ice cream.

When I was sixteen my grandma was the first person to ever buy me “real” jewelry. She took me to this little jewelry store in Northville to pick out $300 worth of whatever I wanted. I can’t tell you how special it was! To this day I still have the jewelry. I picked out a set of pearl earrings, a pearl necklace and a pearl ring. A matching set, as every young lady should have (at least that was what she told me). I treasure these things. I wore them to every special occasion. She was the first person to truly make me feel like a young woman.

When my dad called me to tell me she was sick I was devastated. ALS is a crippling disease with no cure (yet). It would surely kill her and it would not be pretty. My dad tried to break the news gently, assuring me that it could be many years. But he was also a realist and made sure I knew it could be as little as three months. This was the cruel reality of the disease. It was the fall of 1995, my first year of college. I have never felt so trapped in one place as I did then. Thankfully, we had a little over a year together. I went home as often as I could, even moving my computer to her house for the last week of exams my first year. She was fine that spring, but I was nervous. By Thanksgiving she couldn’t speak. And one week before Christmas my dad phoned to say she had slipped into a coma and did I want to make the drive over to say goodbye? I didn’t think I would be able to make it in 45 minutes and without having to stop. I didn’t want to say goodbye to the shell of who she really was. I felt so guilty at the time, but I told my dad to tell her goodbye for me and I said it was okay to let go. And she did. It was less than 20 minutes later that my mom called back to say she was gone.

There are so many things I wish she was still alive for. I know she would have loved Melinda and all the kids. She would have been such a fantastic great grandma to Meagan, Mat, Mitch, Marissa and now Emma and the new baby. I wish she could have met Chris. I know she would have loved everything I do about him. I missed her very much when I graduated college and when I went back to become a teacher- something I know she would have loved and supported. There is a part of me that knows she sees all these things from heaven. I know she is up there with her one true love, my grandfather. Still, eight years later, the loss still sometimes stings. She was my best friend. She encouraged the child in me, even as I became an adult. She egged on my adventurous side. She nurtured the creativity in me. She was one of the few people I wrote letters to religiously. The last year of her life I wrote her often. My aunt found all of these letters when she came into town for the funeral. I still have them, packed away. It’s a joyful and painful memory to see what I wrote.

Joyce Frances MacLachlan was the most loving grandparent, mother, and wife. She knew how to have fun. She was a very cool dresser. She knew just the right thing to give as a gift, to say to a child and just the right time to give hugs. She knew how to laugh and knew how to live. Joyce was simply the coolest lady you would ever care to know and I am so glad I can say that she was my grandmother.