- My grandmother lived in France, while I lived just outside Las Vegas.
- She would call me every morning, but I still felt I didn’t know her.
- Starting at 11, I would spend summers with her in France and got to connect with her.
I didn’t see my grandmother, Mémère, often. She lived in a small village near Paris called Chauconin-Neufmontiers, while I grew up in Henderson, just outside Las Vegas, after being born in France. But despite the 5,436 miles between us, a simple phone call made it feel like she was just down the hall.
I heard her voice on the family home phone every morning through our Vonage international plan. I would chatter in French about school, my friends, and Mom’s dog Josephine while she listened patiently, sometimes interjecting with a sharp-witted joke that I only half understood.
Yet, for all those conversations, I hardly knew her. I had only seen a few faded photographs tucked into my mother’s albums. When I imagined her, she was a mystery — a voice without a face.
I met her over the summer
The summer after I turned 11, my mother asked me if I wanted to spend the summer with Mémère. She believed I was mature enough to handle the trip and saw it as an opportunity to teach me independence in my birth country.
Grandma Pat, who usually watched us, was traveling, and with my father working a 9-to-5 and my mother reentering the workforce, there was little sense in paying for expensive summer camps. Instead, my sister and I were about to fly across the Atlantic alone to meet the grandmother we had never truly known.
I remember clutching my burgundy passport tightly at the airport, my sister’s hand in mine, as we waited for our direct XL Airways flight to Paris. When we arrived at her house, I finally saw her — blonde with bangs, her features a reflection of my mother’s.
She greeted us with a playful smirk. “Vous voulez du vin ou de la bière?” she asked. Do you want wine or beer?
I gasped, wide-eyed, scandalized.
She burst into laughter at my reaction, and in that moment, I realized something important: my grandmother had a sense of humor that caught me off guard. I grew to love it.
Mémère’s house felt less strange
Mémère’s house, a 500-year-old home, initially felt frightening. My grandfather, Pépère, had died a few years before we connected with her. My mother’s childhood bedroom, now mine for the summer, held no traces of her past — until Mémère began filling it with new decorations and a collection of Barbie movie cassettes. The kitchen also became my favorite place, where she let me pick out raspberry lemon ice cream, La Paille d’Or cookies, and Haribo Tagada candy.
Each day, she made my favorite meals — croque monsieur and shepherd’s pie — while her favorite show, “Plus Belle La Vie,” played on the television. In the evenings, my cousin, my sister, and I would dance to Keen’V’s and Stromae’s latest hits while she watched, shaking her head in amusement as she smoked her cigarette.
Slowly, her house stopped feeling mysterious and started feeling like home.
But Mémère gave me more than just a home for the summer — she gave me a France beyond Paris. She took me to Meaux, a town associated with the First Battle of the Marne against the Germans during World War I, and walked me through the village countryside, pointing out the battlefield from World War I. She introduced me to distant relatives who took us on trips to Damgan in Northern France, where I fell in love with the Breton coastline, its salted butter caramel, and its quiet beauty. She even made sure we integrated into village life, sending us on daily errands to the boulangerie and treating us to homemade pizza from the food truck in town.
I saw Mémère more often
For years, this became my summer ritual. Each time I arrived, the house felt warmer, and each time I left, I cried.
Two years ago, just before I turned 21, Mémère passed away from lung cancer. When I returned to France for the first time after her death, I visited her grave. It felt strange to be in her village without her. Our house was no longer filled with the sounds of her laughter or her jokes.
As I fought back tears, I thought of those summers — the way we had transformed her once-empty home. How she had once been a distant voice on the phone, and now, she was a part of me.
Each summer I spent with her, I found my lost grandmother. And even though she is gone, I will never lose her again.
