caregivers in our lives
for my grandma, Patricia Marquardt, the whole person
I sometimes think that we don’t see the caregivers in our lives as real people— we see them as mom, or dad, or grandma. We see how lovingly they perform that role, and sometimes they perform that role so well that we don’t get to see the whole person.
I didn’t know my grandmother’s middle name until I spoke it at her funeral.
Growing up, my grandparents had this cottage on Sage Lake in Northern Michigan. We would go up and stay with them on weekends in the summers. It was a nice place, with wood walls and loon statue decor. We all slept in a room with full sized bunkbeds across from the master.
Dad and grandpa would take me out on a Hobie Cat sailboat, and we’d come home to my mom and Claire, my younger sister on the dock with the dog, Max.
Grandma would cook for everyone. The floor would be covered with our kids toys, and someone would step on a doll. She’d have play dough for us, or crayons, or paint if everyone was feeling brave.
Grandma was an artist— you could find furniture she’d painted throughout the house. She’d sit with us and draw, show us how to draw flowers, or how to color the sky all the way to the horizon.
In the mornings at the cabin it was just Claire, me, and her. The others would sleep in. She’d make a pot of coffee for herself and grandpa and get us juice, then make us cinnamon sugar toast with the crust cut off. I still make that for myself sometimes, when I want something easy and sweet for breakfast. Usually I keep the crust on now, but the smell of toast and butter and sugar always reminded me of those mornings at the Lake.
It’s a hazy memory now, one from when I was very little. The sort of memory that with the right breeze, the right smell, you can almost touch but not quite.
We would swim off the dock in the Lake and once Claire and I got leeches. Grandma poured salt on them while we panicked and my mom tried not to laugh. Grandma didn’t laugh though— she took us and our panic very seriously.
In the evenings they would take us out for ice cream, or we’d boat across the lake to the restaurant on the water, or head up to the golf course where grandpa and I would split a slice of apple pie. When we got ice cream Grandma was sure to get a cone for the dog, Max, too.
Almost 20 years ago, Grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer. She still took Claire and I to play at the park by the river, after we lunch at the pizza place in West Branch.
“Grandma I’m tired and I want to go home,” I flopped on a bench next to her.
“I’m tired too,” she told me. “We’ll leave real soon. Grandpa and Claire are still playing.”
We never really knew how tired she was. Not through chemo, or radiation, or surgery, or eventually recovery.
“Grandma is fragile,” my parents would warn us before we went to visit. “Be gentle with her.”
If she was fragile, she didn’t let us know it.
On Wednesday I sat with Grandpa and Claire and together we listened and wrote her eulogy. There was so much I didn’t know about her.
Her middle name was Faye. My middle name is hers, Patricia.
My grandparents met when they were 15 and 16. My grandma’s mother, Mildred, thought they were getting too serious too soon. Grandpa hung around a lot. “I can’t even throw out the dishwater without seeing John Marquardt there at the backdoor,” she complained.
My grandpa laughed when he told us this story, and we did too.
They got married when they were twenty, and had my dad about a year later. Grandpa began his academic career around the same time my grandma got pregnant with her second child, Uncle Paul. Grandpa worked and studied long hours, and she did the laundry, the cooking, the bulk of the housework.
Oh, and she’d type his papers up for him on the typewriter. You could say she has a PhD in accounting.
They moved 20 times in 39 years while grandpa pursued his academic career before settling back in Michigan. While they lived in Florida, she got her LPN and began working as a nurse.
When I was 12 or so I got sick at their house. My mom called and asked if she should come pick me up early and I said no, grandma is taking care of me. She brought me orange juice and put a cool washcloth on my head. I might’ve been milking it. My house was “take an Advil and get over it” country. Grandma made me treats when I was sick.
Grandma Pat, Patricia Marquardt, died on April 2, 2023 at 77. She began to struggle with her health again last August.
She was in the hospital for a longer stay in February, and just two weeks ago I flew home to Michigan to visit her. I had almost put it off until April, but I’m so glad I went when I did and got to see her again.
In the hospital this last time, just a few weeks ago, she was still cracking jokes to my mom. At the end of the day when Grandpa went to leave Grandma said “well where do you think you’re going?”
Grandpa said “Home, I’ve been here seven hours.”
She looked him straight in the face and said “I’ve been here longer.”
She really struggled in the hospital this last time and my mom, Char, and dad, John, were there with her through a lot of it. At one point when she was still a little out of it, Grandpa JD asked her if she know who my mom was.
She looked at him and said “Oh I know who she is but who are you?” She was joking— again, they’ve been dating since they were sixteen.
After this last time in the hospital she seemed a lot better in the following weeks, and then began to struggle again this past week. My parents were able to visit on Saturday and while my mom was helping her get into bed for a nap and she looked at my dad and joked “you better not mess with her”, because she’s so strong. She died not too long after that, but she kept her humor and was her wonderful self right up until the end.
She died last Sunday, a week ago today. I found out in the morning and booked flights back to Michigan for the second time in under a month, panicked. This was something I wanted to be there for, but the weather looked awful. I was convinced my flight would be cancelled.
I booked my flight for Tuesday, just before the big storm blew through up here. We took off from Duluth in white-out conditions. I thought I was going to vomit on the plane. We were the last flight out of Duluth for the day. I was certain I was going to be stuck in Minneapolis, but I made it to Detroit.
On Wednesday we sat with Grandpa and I took notes for the eulogy. I think the strangest thing about death is how someone can be completely there, then suddenly not. On Wednesday, we told stories about her from Saturday. Saturday she was sick, but but she was still joking. How could it be that someone who told a joke on Saturday was gone on Sunday? It doesn’t make sense.
I knew her as a Grandma, but she was so much more than that.
My grandma, Patricia Marquardt, was a compassionate woman. She listened to what everyone had to say without judging; she was soft spoken, but had a big impact on many people’s lives. She was a person you could turn to if you were sick, or sad, or needed to be heard. She was a wonderful nurse, a caring mother John and Paul, a gracious friend, an invested grandmother for all four us, an exceptionally kind mother-in-law to my mom, a sister to Peggy, Doris, and Tom, a supportive wife to JD, a caring aunt and great aunt. She lived a full and remarkable life. Today and for many years to come, she is and will be loved.
You can read her obituary and see more photos here.
Thanks for reading! It’s been a pretty terrible past week and I haven’t been able to do nearly as much work as I was hoping to. I took time off earlier in the week when I was sick, and then took the whole week off to go home and help prepare for the funeral, and I wouldn’t have been able to take all that time off and make it work without the support & extra income from paying subscribers of Hello Stranger.
I’m so grateful for everyone who took the time to read this post about my grandmother, and so grateful to have a place to write like this where people read my work, and to have that be part of my job.
I wouldn’t be here without you.
I hope you have a wonderful week, filled with sunshine and spring flowers❤️
-Maddy
Maddy, I'm sorry for your loss. Your grandmother sounds like a wonderful woman. Reading this brought back memories of my own grandmother who we lost 23 years ago and I miss her everyday.
I recently found out that I'll become a grandma this fall and hope that I can provide wonderful memories like these to my grandchildren.
Maddy I’m so thankful and grateful that u not only got to see and spend time with your grandmother but could come back and be support for your grandfather and your dad and mom. I know it meant the world to all of them. Hugs to u. You are all in our thoughts and prayers.🙏🏻💙