Margo's idea of getting ready was to wash her face with plain soap and water, comb her hair and brush her teeth. End of story.

"It's o.k. to be poor, but you can't be filthy," she'd explain.

She was proud of the fact that she'd purchased a tooth brush with her first wages at the age of twelve. "People didn't brush their teeth back then," she'd say. "You should have seen how they looked, with their teeth all green and black like that." The toothbrush served her well: she had perfect teeth well into her eighties.

She didn't wear make-up. Her jewelry was pragmatic: a wedding ring to announce her status, a watch to read the time, and a medal of Christ to keep in God's good graces. She'd wear the brooches she'd receive for Christmas or Mother's day. It was her duty to wear whatever was gifted but it would have never occurred to ask for it. The closest she came to acquiring jewelry was when she puchased a small silver medal of Mary from the Mt Des Cats monastery (she gave me the medal).

She wore flat shoes with shoelaces and owned one purse that she took out of the closet on Sundays. She rotated through four or five polyester dresses and a handful of blouses, and never worried about her weight. She cooked with butter, drank wine and ate the leftovers before finishing a meal. Witht the years and an expanding waistline, the thin belt she wore over her dress took on more of a symbolic than a practical role. Eventually, the belt came to rest a couple of inches below her breasts. It stayed there to the end.

Prepared

She wore a cardigan year round. The worst would have been to die of "un chaud et un froid" (a spell of "hot and cold").

She worried about drafty places and sudden changes in the weather. She needn't have worried; Dunkirk is windy and rainy nine months out of the year.

Every three or four years, she'd knit herself a new hat and gloves and perhaps a cardigan.

She wore a man's scarf over her raincoat, a plastic protector over her hat and zippered boots that hugged her calves. She fastened steel clamps to the sole of her shoes during ice storms, never forgot her handkerchief and her house key.

Her key ring held a miniature replica of a rubber boot, an old gift from a shoe salesman. She kept her coinpurse in her coat pocket where no thief would reach. There never was a thief to be found on the "rue de la Republique" (Republic Street). Still, she was prepared.

Work

"I dreamed of my grandmother last night," I tell Stan. "I was so happy to see her."

"I know she is watching over you," he says. "You had a hard week at work. Did she have any advice for you?"

She didn't.

We never talked about my work anyway. She was proud of my achievements, would tell neighbors and visitors that I had "a good position" with a university. What I did was a mystery to her.

She had completed the fifth grade and gone to work at age 12, ironing clothes and sheets in the back of a laundry operation. A year later, she had found a position as an apprentice hat-maker and had worked for the hat shop until my mother was born in 1940. She had stayed home then and had worked on keeping a home, raising children, making clothes and tending to the garden. When my grandfather retired from his job as an accountant in the mid 70's, she complained that she would never get to retire from her endless house chores.

She never understood office politics, never suspected the existence of such things as performance evaluations, mission statements, financial reports or strategic plans. She was only concerned that I should have a stable job - preferrably the same until retirement.

"Are they treating you well?" she'd ask.

"Yes"

"Do you work long hours?"

"Sometimes."

"You are too skinny: skin on bones. You need to eat more."

"I eat fine."

"Do you have a hot meal everyday?"

"I prefer salads."

"That's not real food. How can you live on salads? Do you sleep well?"

"I sleep fine."

"You look tired."

I was always too skinny and tired for Margo, too involved with work, too busy, too hurried.

"It's not good to work so much," she'd say.

Perhaps she was right.