Essay #3
The Story of a Woman Proprietor: My Grandma
She loves giving gifts. On second thought, she loves her ability to give. It signals her strength, both financial and personal. During Christmas and Easter time, this is especially obvious. My Grandmother did not usually spend the holidays with my family in Croatia’s capital, Zagreb. Instead, she preferred to spend those cold winter days in Zadar, a coastal city in Dalmatia, where she could soak in the sunshine. Most of all, she loved hearing gossip about local families while sipping her morning cappuccino. Whose son became chief of surgery in the hospital? Which family bought a new apartment in the city center in Zagreb? Someone is selling land on the touristy island that is only ten minutes away from Zadar? She was interested in all of that.
In between her morning chats, she also loved visiting stores. She loved shopping! It did not matter what she bought: velour track suits for my mother, anti-aging creams for her sister, suits and polos for my dad, or colorful stickers and jewelry for my sister and me. “Call Grandmother and thank her for the gifts,” my father would tell my siblings and me after the packages arrived. We were usually busy unpacking our new toys but he insisted. Meanwhile, my mother would roll her eyes as her kids lined up to thank “the proprietor” for her generosity over the telephone. On her mobile phone, my mom would discuss the matter with her sister. She smoked, of course, to calm her nerves when talking about the mother-in-law. “The money will run out. The money will run out. Grandpa will not be able to work forever; he can already barely walk with the cane. Her properties will not be able to feed her character forever!” My mother was right. My Grandmother’s strength vanished when Grandpa passed away. Even her properties all across Croatia could not help her.
Unlike in Griselda’s and Chunhyang’s case, my grandparents’ marriage was not arranged by the husband. Unlike Mongryong, my Grandpa did not “instantly [adore] her like a butterfly adores a flower” (Im). On the contrary, Grandmother was the one who proposed. She knew that my grandpa was intelligent. After all, he was in medical school. More importantly, he was on his way to become a doctor. “She knew that it was smart to start a family with him.” Again, my mother was right. Grandmother wanted to get financial stability and a good social status out of her marriage. Chunhyang and Griselda never expressed their desires to achieve either of those. Nonetheless, all of the three wives ascended the social and financial ladder because of their husbands. Just like Griselda, Grandmother brought “faith, loyalty, reverence, and poverty” (114) to her marriage.
Like Mongryong, my grandpa never had to worry if Grandmother would follow him when he got reassigned to work in another hospital in another city. On the contrary, she was always ready to pack her bags and settle elsewhere. However, unlike Walter, my Grandpa did not care if she brought “her true love for him” (112) in their marriage. While for Griselda “nothing in the world, neither family, nor friends, nor [her] own life can compare with [Walter’s] love,” (112) Grandmother cares deeply about herself and her side of the family. For example, she made sure to send monthly checks to her siblings who were not as financially stable as she was. She also never hesitated to swipe the American Express for herself. Furthermore, Griselda was happy with the “position in which [she had] lived” (114) thanks to Walter. Similarly, my Grandmother was happy with the financial and social status that her marriage provided for her.
Grandmother admired her husband’s intelligence. However, my siblings and I never knew a lot about my late Grandpa’s life. Where did he live during his childhood? Did he have any sibling? How did he get interested in medicine? Why did he decide to pursue it? Why did he pursue it until until his last days? On the other hand, we know a whole lot about Grandmother. We can name and recite the life stories of all her six siblings and nine cousins. As a matter of fact, she had us spend extensive time meeting them. She used to say: “It is important to know your roots!” In short, she set the narrative of the family. Just like Scheherezade and Griselda, she would tend to hide her intentions in order to achieve a greater goal. “She is like a snake who desires dominance” my mother would say when she ran out of cigarettes during our family vacations. Unsurprisingly, Grandmother was the one who would hand envelopes with cash when the kids got excellent report cards. She was the one who decided how the family money was going to be spent –– be that on gifts, trips, or her favorite, real estate.
She began accumulating property as my grandpa’s income rose. He loved working late nights in the hospital while she loved seeing her real-estate multiply. Paradoxically, they were a perfect match. My mother first met her in her apartment in Zagreb after my dad announced his proposal. That was the only place she agreed to meet my mother. At the time, it was the only property she had in the capital city. More importantly, it was in located in the city center of the capital city. Thus, the property was her biggest pride at the time. She did not like meeting anywhere else in the city. “I guess she did not feel as powerful if she was physically not located in something that belongs to her” my mother explains. However, this is just my mother’s point of view.
Grandmother’s second biggest pride was her summer house. Indeed, someone was selling that land on the touristy island just ten minutes away from Zadar. Expectedly, she was the one who decided to buy it. She did the paperwork and it was set: the house was hers. She was never particularly fond of the island but she loved showing it off. In fact, we spent many of our summer breaks on the island. My mother recalls her saying: “When do you think you will be able to have a house as big and grand as this?” during one hot afternoon right after we grilled some fish for lunch. The scents of grilled fish over Mediterranean olive oil were always present around the house. “That is when I will respect you!” Grandmother added casually. My mother did not have much of an appetite during our summers. “But the fish is so crispy and delicious, Mommy!” we would say. My siblings and I were not particularly fond of the grasshoppers or all the other insects on the island; we were urban kids who only liked the seafood part of living on an island. Grandmother would not hear it. We were obliged to spend our summer vacations there despite our objections.
After my grandpa’s death, it turned out that the summer house was not actually hers and neither were several of the other properties. Her son, my uncle, wanted his fair share of the family’s real-estate. After meetings with family lawyers who confirmed this, she was devastated. During the months following the funeral, she was weaker than I have ever seen her before. Her voice trembled this summer when we ate our fish in a house that she knew was no longer hers. In fact, she barely talked at all. If she did, she mumbled odd phrases here and there while watching Turkish soap operas on the TV. It has been over half a year since grandpa passed away and since she found out she is losing her proprietor status. She still finds it difficult to get out of bed every morning knowing he has not slept by her side.
I talked to her recently over the phone. She says she hates being all alone, and thinks about him all the time. However, she wants to go to Zagreb and see her mother, sister, and cousins. She also wants to “just check up on her apartments” or what is left of them. “If only I could get some motivation” she says. She adds that she looks forward to winter break and my arrival: “perhaps we can go downtown and check the new boutiques”. Do I still love jewelry? I sure do. But I would also love to know if her vigor vanished because he was gone or because all the properties will no longer be hers. Perhaps I will never know. Regardless, I do know that she was a good proprietor and an unorthodox wife. While she was no Chunhyang, she was a good spouse. Moreover, she was and still is “one in soul” with my Grandpa (Im). If this were not the case, she would still possess the strength that scared my mother when they first met.
Word Count: 1472
Works Cited
Chunhyang. Dir. Kwon-taek Im. Perf. Hyo-jeong Lee. Seung-woo Cho, Sung-nyu Kim and
Hak-young Kim. Lot 47 Films, 2000. Film.
Le Ménagier de Paris. The Good Wife's Guide: A Medieval Household Book. Trans. Gina L.
Greco and Christine M. Rose. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2009. Print.
Tales from the Thousand and One Nights. Trans. N.J. Dawood. New York: Penguin, 1973: 15-23.
Print.