Ignoring Alva by Emilie Khair

We all have people in our lives who shape us, often in ways we don’t fully understand until later. For me, they were my two grandmothers. My mom’s mom, Myrtle Orilla (my brothers and I used to chant “Myrtle the turtle, Orilla gorilla”- but only to her back), and my dad’s mom, Margaret. Myrtle married a banker, had four children, was widowed in her fifties, and spent her remaining fifty plus years, pretty much doing what she wanted. Yep, she lived, by herself, right up to 103. Myrle was a learner, and a doer. She wrote and published poetry, wrote short biographies of every presidents’ wife, loved the Minnesota Twins, and travel. She and her sister Evy explored Europe and spent time with family members in the old country. She enjoyed baking, and gardening, and journaling. When she passed, I inherited boxes and boxes of journals, old letters, original hymn lyrics, and postcards. Myrtle was prolific. She had the time, and the money to pursue her interests. A stoic Scandinavian to the end, she was kind, but not demonstrative; I didn’t see her often, but her confidence and creativity is something I admired.

Margaret married a printer, and had two sons. She worked on an assembly line at Honeywell. My grandpa Elmer was a doll in his later life, sharp as a tack. But their early years of marriage were fraught with money problems, compounded by his love of a good drink. Margaret was a mediator, a loving wife with too much patience and forgiveness. There was never enough time for Margaret to explore Margaret. But she didn’t mind. She loved hard, maybe more Swede than Norwegian!—she was a caretaker, to her husband, her nine siblings, her sons and their families. She loved to have me spend the night with her. We would make macaroni in milk with ketchup for dinner, and form ham balls at Christmas. Where Myrtle slaved over delicate krumkake, Margaret made brownies from a Betty Crocker box. When I grew older, I started taking stock of some of the more remarkable things grandma Margaret could do. When I became much older, I knew I wanted to write about those things, the characteristics that made her so unique. Margaret IS ALVA. Alva is Margaret who wants to take chances, to be seen, like Myrtle.

Margaret could sit down and play any song on the piano, but she never had a lesson. She could do the Sunday crossword upside down. She was never stumped on Wheel of Fortune. And no one really noticed just how smart or how creative she was, especially Margaret. I started thinking, what if Margaret went out in the world and had a few adventures of her own? Maybe take along her sister, like Myrtle traveled with hers? Two older woman, embracing “more.”

It was a beginning. And maybe not the end.