This is your Great Grandma Swoyer. Without her there'd be no you. A truly wonderful woman, as I'm sure your own Moms will tell you. I wrote this 10 years ago, just after she passed away.
Remembering Myfanwy
April 30, 2002
First of all, there’s that name.
I can remember a time in my youth when that name embarrassed me. It was so different. And this was during a time when I wanted nothing more than to conform to everything and everyone else – same haircut, same clothes, same likes and dislikes -- same same. The last thing I wanted was for anything to distinguish me from the other teenagers in my crowd. Why couldn’t my Mom have a name like Mary or Sue or Pat? Worse still, there was a butt joke in that name. “Did someone say, ‘Fanny’?!”
And, can we at last settle on how to pronounce Mom’s name? Dad called her “Mah-VAN-oo.” Folks at the nursing home called her “Missy.” Somewhere in between there are “Mah-van-WEE,” “MIF-uhn-wee,” “Mah-FAN-oo,” and I’ve even heard “mih-FAN-uh-wee.”
Perhaps it’s best to hear how the choirboys pronounce it in the old Welsh song by the same name:
“Myfanwy, may you spend your lifetime
Beneath the midday sunshine’s glow,
And on your cheeks O may the roses
Dance for a hundred years or so.”
How fitting.
In the country of Wales, there’s a 13th Century stone fortress that reputedly was the home of a woman named Myfanwy who spurned the amorous advances of a guy who just happened to be a poet. Thus rebuffed, this broken-hearted suitor wrote a love poem, called “Myfanwy,” that was set to music. And this is what became one of Wale’s best-known songs.
But, what does the name mean? “My love,” is what I was always told. But, I’ve also seen it translated as “my fine one” and “dear woman.” Regardless, in every instance, they all apply.
In Mom’s senior high school yearbook photo, underneath her name, is a quote from a Wordsworth poem:
“A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!”
What is missing from the yearbook, is the rest of that line:
“Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.”
Indeed, Myfanwy Williams Swoyer was a very special person.
For a while, she called her son-in-law Brad, “Bob.” She was always embarrassed about this, but in the end she amended the mistake in a profound way. In the end, after she had lost all recall of many other names and faces, she always – always – recognized Brad.
Melba remembers how thrilled Mom was when she learned she was going to have a grandson. “The Swoyer name will go on!” Mom cried.
Erik recalls that Mom could “chug” a drink with the best of us – even if it were only a glass of water.
Tom first met Mom at a family party. She was having trouble remembering names and finally said to him, in despair (and I’m sure she tsk’d before she said this), “Tsk, tsk, tsk, I don’t know any of these people.” Tom said, “Neither do I, we will sit together.” They were friends from that day forward.
Kim, I know, loved Mom deeply and with the same tremendous amount of respect she always has shown our family. I believe she felt Mom neatly and perfectly filled the bill as Grandma to Jess and Cobey.
But as a Grandma, Heather and Eileen really got the best of Mom – in her younger years. Heather remembers her words of wisdom: “Now, after a bath, dry between your toes to prevent mold from growing!”
Eileen remembers Doctor Grandma, who prescribed for a headache, alas, a day without TV; and Chef Grandma, who at Christmastime would make vanilla ice cream with crème de menthe.
Jess remembers her Grandma’s big blue eyes that’d only get bigger with excitement. And, she has picked up a few of Mom’s traits, beginning and ending her sentences with, “Now, wait…”
Both Cobey and Jessica have fond memories of visiting Grandma and Grandpa and how they’d always be at the window waiting for us at the exact time we arrived at their apartment (and this was in the days before cell phones). Cobey also recalls playing with the ancient toys Grandma had saved since Judy and I were kids: dominoes with splinters; a clicker-clacker that made enough noise to drive everyone crazy.
Grandma was in her late-70s when Casey was born. As he says, it’s hard for him to remember any specific stories. But, Melba will tell him that he used to take long walks with her. And she’d point out all of life to him, like all the things that float in the puddles after a rain. A bond was formed from these walks, I know. I know this because when it became even too painful for me to visit her, he would say to me, “But, Dad, we have to visit Grandma.”
Elizabeth Myfanwy will remember the least, of course. Then again, with all of us by her side, she will remember everything about her great-grandmother. Also, let’s not forget, she has been blessed with – that name!
As a Mom to me, well, how much time do you have? We’re talking about a woman who gave birth to me when she was just entering her 40s. Do you think I gave her any dispensation for this? Hardly: I was just like any other son. And she shone as a Mom – mightily.
On the one hand, she was a tough broad: I can remember in awe as my friends and I watched her pull apart two giant backyard snakes – one that was swallowing the other. Dad would never have done this.
On the other hand, she was a gentle flower, like the violet in the poem. In the afternoons as a child I would climb on her lap and she’d sing just to me all those songs that the folks at the nursing home have come to love. In those private moments, we were the only two people in the world. And I’d fall asleep in her arms.
In all that I have ever done, I have always seen Mom before my eyes.
My sister Judy has a lifetime of memories about Mom – enough to fill a thousand 10-page letters. And, over the years, she has written these letters to Mom what seems a thousand times. I couldn’t bring to these memories the justice they deserve. Judy remembers everything – which, by the way, is a wonderful thing she learned from Mom.
I wonder, what is the most important thing to say of all my sister’s memories of Mom? It is this: It is that this child thought enough in so many special ways to tell her Mom how much she loved her – over, and over, and over again.
But it’s time to wrap this up. And, we cannot forget that Mom was a loving wife; a good, loving wife – in a different way from today’s world, but first-class, just the same.
I believe Mom was happiest when Kenneth was nearby – even when she was angry with him. That’s the kind of wife she was.
There’s a famous line at the end of “A Tale of Two Cities” – “It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done…” But it is the rest of this line that I believe is befitting the moment: “It is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
Sleep well, Mom. For, you are with Dad once more.
