Michelle Cadwallader (right) discusses her grandmother with her friend Tracey Epp.
Part of her charm came from her odd nicknames and unique behaviors, but as Michelle grew older she realized that her grandmother had mood swings and impaired judgment, and suffered from bipolar disorder.
Originally aired April 14, 2006, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Tracey Epp (TE) and Michelle Cadwallader (MC)
TE: Tell me about your grandmother.
MC: Well, Gremmy was my maternal grandmother and she decided that she didn’t want to be a grandmother or granny or nanna or something like that so she made up her own name for herself and so she became Gremmich which was a combination between gremlin and witch. She also had this alter ego that was Mrs. Wiffenpoofle. And she wasn’t just like this with kids she was like this with her old friends she would send letters to them signed Mrs. Wiffenpoofle, she was sometimes in her own her own little world.
TE: What’s the earliest memory you have of her?
MC: Probably tucking me into bed at night. She would nibble on our ears and try and guess the flavor of the ear. And so she’d you know kiss your earlobe and say Mmmm, what are you tonight. And she’d guess chocolate, and of course you’d say no. Pistachio? No. And I’d try and come up with the most complicated flavor I knew to make it so she would have to keep kissing my ear again and again and again. She was different than other old people that I knew who didn’t like loud noise or she would sing and she could play the piano so we could all sing together. So I loved having her around. And then as I got older I started realizing that it was a strain on adults to be around her at times. To be around somebody that had so much energy that she couldn’t complete one task. Like when she would drive you know she would turn around and look at us in the back seat to talk with us while she was driving. I mean, we would go over the curb. You know, when I knew enough about driving I started feeling unsafe with her in the car not because she was old but because she just was distracted.
TE: Was there ever a conversation when your mother or any adult sort of sat you down and told you officially about your grandmother’s illness?
MC: I don’t remember any specific conversation I just remember somehow catching on finally that when they say highs and lows and ohh mother’s in such a nice spot right now, like she’s really balanced, I realized this is a lot of why she was so fantastic, because she was manic depressive. She had more energy probably than the kids did, you know, like when we went to bed tired at night she would still be wired and be cleaning until 3 in the morning and I wondered, you know, is this person who’s this fantastic playmate, is that really my grandmother or is that an illness that wires her brain to go for days without sleep. And I learned the other side of her like when she couldn’t get out of bed or you know, somebody else had to buy groceries for her because otherwise she just would have not eaten.
TE: What regrets if any do you have?
MC: I was traveling across country the summer she died and I had planned to visit her and on my way my mom called and told me she had died. So we had had this visit planed where I was gonna spend 3 days with her and I never got to do that.
TE: If there’s one thing that you could have said to her before she died what would you have said to her?
MC: Hm. I would have said I love you one more time. But I told her that a lot. Like she knew that. I also wished that she had met you. She’d heard a lot about you and she knew that you were incredibly special to me and I think that you would have fallen in love with her. And I wanted to share you with her.
