In Memoriam: Elizabeth "Bettie" Witmer, 1922-2004

This has been a holiday break of mixed emotions. My grandmother on my mother's side died two days before Christmas. She had suffered from Alzheimer's disease for several years, which is a difficult thing to watch and must be unbearable to experience. But before that, she was outgoing and full of laughs, and an interesting character far outside the "Granny" stereotype.

For starters, when she became a grandmother, she gave herself a new name: Mimi. This is by no means the oddest name for a grandmother in circulation, but it made her stand out from all the other Grandmas I knew, and I once asked her why she had chosen it. She told me she wanted a name that all children, not just her grandkids, would be comfortable calling her. I applied the same logic to my grandfather, shortening "Grandpa" to "Gra."

Mimi and Gra both grew up in Detroit. One day last year, she and my grandfather showed me their yearbooks from two different Detroit high schools. The story goes that Mimi was a real social butterfly, while my grandfather was already into tinkering with electronics and other gadgetry. When I started playing the viola in middle school, Mimi told me that she signed up to play the double bass, in hopes that boys would offer to carry the massive instrument home for her. When the rare day came that no boy volunteered, she switched to cello, and put a roller skate on the bottom of the case.

Mimi liked things that revolve around the beach: swimming, snorkeling, sunbathing. For most of my life, she and my grandfather lived in Port St. Lucie, Florida. They had a pool at their house, and the Atlantic was not far away. She also liked dazzling jewelry -- big, sparkling diamonds that make me feel small just by looking at them. At the house in Florida, Mimi saw to it that even the ceiling had sparkles in it.

Mimi traveled the world. Going to Mimi's house was a vacation in itself, but I will always remember two trips I took with Mimi. In 1987, our family took a cruise to Alaska. Besides riding onto a glacier in a helicopter, one highlight for me was watching Mimi order her food on formal night. The menu offered decadent, exotic items that give cruises their opulent reputation and make fifth-graders' eyes pop, and Mimi ordered all of them: caviar, escargot and frog legs.

In 1993, I went to London with Mimi, my mom and sister, and a high-school friend of mine. The food on that trip left much to be desired, but Mimi still helped us all have a great time. We saw all the museums, watched the changing of the guard, and visited Stonehenge.

Growing up, I read a lot of slightly behind-the-times children's books where the grandparents all live near their grandchildren on farms or in creaky old houses. Grannies in those books are stern and old-fashioned. They put their hair in dowdy buns, and they live to cook big family feasts. Not so for Mimi, who was more likely to be found skinny-dipping in the pool than wearing an apron in the kitchen.

But the more important difference for me was that Mimi didn't do much scolding or shushing or imposing of outmoded ways. I don't think she wanted to live in the past, which seems to be what those archetypal Grannies are trying to do. She never invoked the wrath of our ancestors or said things were better in her day or threatened to write us out of the will if we did anything unladylike. I spent a lot of time in books as a kid, and Mimi provided some early clues that my life would be different from those of book characters and many of the kids around me. I think she was happy doing her thing and wanted us to do ours. I couldn't ask for a better example to follow.

So that's a few words about Mimi. We are not holding a funeral, but are working on a plan for her final sendoff, to take place within the next week. I'll report back.