I’ll Leave the Stove on For Ya!

Many years ago my wife and I took a quick detour on our way to see some friends in Ohio to visit my grandmother in Shelbyville, Indiana. Most people don’t choose to vacation in that part of the country which is understandable because there really isn’t much of a reason to visit. Other than seeing one’s friends or family the only features that central Ohio and Indiana offer are cornfields and small towns in economic decline.

My grandmother, however, had been having a difficult time and I decided that a visit was necessary. Her husband had recently passed away and Nana — the name by which her grandchildren referred to her — was struggling with his absence.

Our visit was typical in that it was both pleasant and odd. Aside from a brief mention of the Locust trees being in bloom, I don’t recall much of what we chatted about. At some point, Nana insisted that my wife and I take a porcelain figurine of a young woman holding a child to serve as a good luck charm in our attempt to start a family. Even more memorable than receiving a fertility symbol from Nana was her obsession with the stove in her kitchen.

Shortly before we left I recalled her double, and then triple-checking, the dials on the electric range. These inspections didn’t occur all at once but, rather, over the course of a few minutes as she readied herself to leave for the grocery store and I distinctly remember thinking, “What kind of idiot forgets to turn off the burners on the stove?”. This question was immediately followed by another which was “What kind of an asshole thinks that his grandmother is an idiot?”

It’s only after twenty years that I have found a definitive, and somewhat unsettling, answer to both questions.

My grandmother was many things, but she had never been — nor was she then — an idiot. At the age of sixteen, she was enrolled in college at a time when most women didn’t seek higher education and graduated within two years. Among much else she went on to become a talented painter and author. Kurt Vonnegut once called her a “true writer.” Compliments, in my opinion, don’t get much better than that.

My grandmother was incredibly bright and kind but also quirky to the point of being misunderstood. She was the sort of person who, upon meeting you for the first time, would ask if you’d been having regular bowel movements. In her defense people from her generation seemed to be fascinated with a person’s bowels. It was almost like their version of saying hello and, while the question was usually received with confusion from anyone who wasn’t 70, Nana always followed the answer with genuine interest and, if necessary, concern.

At first, I thought that Nana’s fascination with her electric range might indicate a slight mental decline but quickly shelved the idea. More than likely the quirk was due to circumstance. She was, after all, learning how to live alone for the first time in her life and her memory had never been an issue. Quite the contrary, Nana could remember birthdays and events both public and specific to her life in exquisite detail. In comparison, I’ve found that I rarely make it out of a grocery store without forgetting two or three items before wandering around the parking lot for five minutes in an attempt to find my car.

In hindsight, when it came to mental acuity, my grandmother wasn’t the person I should have been worried about.

One of the long-running jokes in my immediate family is that I always leave something out when I’m making a meal. It’s become so commonplace that it’s not so much of a joke as an expectation. Last night I left out the shiitake mushrooms in our ramen. The night before that I forgot to add zucchini to a vegetable soup. Typically, the ingredient is never anything integral to the dish and nothing anyone would miss. I haven’t heard many people complain about a lack of zucchini in anything and a few missing mushrooms never hurt anyone.

Then, there are the times that I forget something a tad more important. A few weeks ago I was boiling eggs. The timer went off and I quickly transferred the eggs to the sink for a rinse in cold water before going on about…well whatever it was I was going to do. Imagine my surprise a few hours later to find that I’d left the burner on low for the bulk of the afternoon?

According to my family, this development is not all that unusual or even noteworthy. Most people would notice a small blue flame cheerfully burning away for a few hours, but I’m not one of them. Despite priding myself on being somewhat present in my life I am, apparently, notoriously absentminded…

To read more just click through to I’ll Leave the Stove on For Ya! on Medium!

About the Author

derekbremer Prior to his life as a stay at home father Derek spent more than a decade performing public relations and marketing functions for financial consulting firms and found the job to be precisely as exciting as it sounds. When not tending to his wife or daughter Derek enjoys subjecting the public to his unique take on fatherhood, travel and animal husbandry. He has been published in Scary Mommy, Sammiches and Psych Meds, The Good Men Project, HowToBeADad, Red Tricycle, RAZED, HPP and the Anthology "It's Really Ten Months Special Delivery: A Collection of Stories from Girth to Birth.