about my granny.

i can’t think of a single thing she’s afraid of.  seriously and literally.  i’m not exaggerating even a little bit. 

well, i guess these days, she’s afraid of being alone—she gets anxious when anyone stands from their seat and obsessively asks “where you goin?” when they move to exit a room she’s in.but that’s not her though.  that’s what time and strokes have given to her.  but my *real* grandmother, the her that is buried beneath the anxious obsessions is literally scared of nothing.

she always did the dirty work, my grandmother.  when i was a kid, my mother was too squeamish to pull my teeth when it was time, and i was not about to tie a string to any of my teeth and sit while someone slams a door to yank it out.  so, when my mother couldn’t take any more of my wiggling a dangling tooth, she sent me to my grandmother.

“my tooth is really loose,” i’d say to her.

“let’s see.”

“don’t pull it!”

“i ain’t.  let’s see.”

and every time, i’d open up, point to the tooth, and she’d have it in my hand before i had time to protest.  that happened with each and every tooth.  i’d tell her not to pull it, she’d promise not to, i’d believe her, then she’d yank it.  quick & dirty, in the middle of what ever she was doing.

i feel uneasy remembering this, because something else she isn’t afraid of is germs.  washing her hands was hardly paramount to her, and it really should have been, given her pastimes:  tending to her endless rosebushes she grew in the backyard (without gardening gloves), cleaning the fish & rabbits her brother brought by the house after his trips to the lake; cutting corns and callouses from her feet with her pocket knife; mindlessly picking her nose while watching her favorite shows.  from her hands to my mouth, with no pit stops.  i’m pretty sure that has something to do with my current germaphobism.

i always figured that she wasn’t used to having the time to stop for things as trivial as hand washing—raising six kids on your own, there was always a mouth to feed, a fight to break up, a meal to cook.  i wish she was afraid of them, though.  or at least wary of them.  something i’ve been wanting to write about here is barriers, things that make me hesitant to get physically close to her.  the main thing is hygiene.  we see to it that she bathes regularly, of course, but there are the little things she doesn’t bother with anymore—eating neatly, keeping her nose clean.  but i’m afraid of painting an unappealing picture of my grandmother and of aging:  a weathered, sallow mass, face always slick with unchecked snot, thick streams of chewed food cascading from the corners of her mouth during meals; swollen, leathery fingertips from constant nervous gnawing; the dank smell of who knows what kind of bacteria incubating on her tongue because she won’t wash her hands before putting them in her mouth after using the bathroom.  i don’t want that to be what anyone pictures when they read about her here.  i don’t want that to be what waits for my mother or myself if we are blessed enough to make it to her age.  i don’t want to acknowledge that part.

but i guess i just did.

i digress.

anyway, she’s not afraid of anything, my grandmother, in her youth or today.  that lasting fearlessness comes in handy, because what we are afraid of, she faces for us just as easily now as she did in her able body.  especially various and sundry critters—rodents, bugs, spiders.  i’ve seen her kill huge, menacing looking spiders with the bare palm of her hand without blinking.  and mice.  oh, lord, the mice.

our house is old, and the wooden cellar door had been waiting to die for most of my childhood.  during the cold months, little field mice would gnaw at weak, rotting spots in the door and slip in to try and wait out the winter in our basement.  my mother wasn’t having that, though. the list of things that she is afraid of is very, very short, but mice undoubtedly own the top spot.  so, she’d put down snap traps and sticky glue pads each winter.  i hated them.  it’s not that i liked the mice—i didn’t.  but there are few things more traumatizing than listening to the panicked death shrieks of a mouse stuck on a glue trap while trying to watch cartoons mickey mouse cartoons.  except, maybe, looking around for a barbie doll and instead finding a nearly decapitated mouse head in a pile of blood and guts. 

it became unbearable when i looked at a mouse, frozen prostrate on a glue trap, and noticed that it was actually kind of cute.  i once tried to convince my mother to take one of the poor bastards off the trap and set it free in a park somewhere, not understanding why taking it off the trap was impossible.  i can’t remember if my mother explained it to me, but if she hadn’t i got the message loud and clear after i told my granny about the mouse.  since she was fearless and apparently indestructible, we left mouse disposal up to her.  i followed her at 10 paces as she went to get the trap, then stood in the door watching as she took the mouse out back, leaned over the railing of our deck, grabbed its thrashing tail and ripped half of its body off the trap.  then she very causally tossed the free portion over the fence for the neighborhood strays to take care of, and tossed the trap and its remainder in a trash bin.  then she walked back into the house and went back to whatever she was doing, maybe stopping to wash her hands on the way.  and maybe not.

that insane fearlessness was called upon again this week when my mother walked in the kitchen to find my grandmother poking at a pile of newspaper with her cane.  my mother started fussing about her not cleaning up her dinner plate when my granny pushed back the paper, causing my mother to completely lose her shit.

“OH MY GOD!!  what is that doing in here?!??!”  my grandmother shook her head.

“just a lil’ ol’ mouse,” she said.

“i know!  what’s it doing in here?!?!”

“it’s dead,” my grandmother said, completely not understanding what the hell she was afraid of.  she shook her head again and turned to leave.

“wait!  aren’t you gonna fix it??”

“can’t fix it; it’s dead.”

“i know, but i can’t clean it up, mama!  i need you to do it!”

my grandmother gave a long, exaggerated “tsk, tsk, tsk,” before going to get the broom and dustpan.  i didn’t see her smile, but i can feel it even as i write these words.

she is needed again.  she is still mama, the one who comes to her kids’ defense when they need her, who can still do for us what we can’t. 

on her way back to whatever she was doing before, she grinned a taunting little grin that said “and don’t you forget it, neither.”

(i can’t remember if she washed her hands or not.)

once, when i wrote far more often than i do now, i wrote a series of three prose pieces about 3 different pictures from our old photo albums.

one of those pictures was of my grandmother and her husband, my grandfather.  i don’t have the picture to upload right now, but i want to share the piece that was written of it; maybe i’ll do this with some other pictures, too:

————

i was told that my mother was just a little girl when this photograph was taken. far younger than i. younger even than my niece, her son’s first born daughter. it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the image of my mother so small, still needy. she probably looked like me, or rather, i looked like her when i was the age she probably was when this scene was captured. new & knee-high to a junebug.

but this picture isn’t of my mother or myself. it’s about our rock, our foundation. our reason for life and the man she used to love.

this picture, like the frozen forms housed within it, has lived a long, eventful life. the ridges of an anonymous fingerprint grip the middle of the photo at the bottom, not far from the curling edge, yellowing with age. i like to imagine that this picture has seen more and heard more and lived more than any one person, one tree, one river cld ever dream of living in a thousand lifetimes. i like to think the same thing about my grandmother, too.

she sits close to him in this picture on his left hand side. to this very day, she still has the watch that she wears here on her right wrist; im sure that it doesn’t work anymore, but that’s no reason to throw away the bearer of so many memories. her hair is pulled back, displaying the fullness of her face to the world. her grin is subtle, barely noticeable, much like my mother’s mouth that easter morning in 1988 or 89.

i wish she bore a full smile.

her hands lay serenely in her lap and the both peer assuredly into the camera lens. i wonder what they’re so sure of? maybe he was certain that he, in his white t-shirt, pale cap and slacks, wld be nothing less than debonair in the final print. and maybe she knew that he wld get jealous as other women’s lovers turned to watch her walking down the street on his arm, the whiteness of her dress kissed yellow with time, floating about her hips. my grandmother had all the genuine prettiness of a sunflower that had managed to grow in gravel, drinking only when heaven spared libation. maybe they knew then that their children and their children’s children would see them this way someday and meant to show them what they had to look forward to—stark brown beauty. commanding mouths and knowing eyes for the women. chiseled faces and soft cheekbones for the males.
he wasn’t the most handsome individual, but he is beautiful with her sitting there, so close to him.

maybe they were only sure of each other’s presence.

i think more than anything, though, she was secure and sure in her love for him.

love lives in every corner of this picture and dances on its right hand side, in the extra space on the bench, vacant because my grandmother has positioned herself as close to him as possible. all the mutual adoration they lost, all the sunrises and prayers and silly lover’s quarrels they shed as they watched their children grow older and fall in love themselves, it all thrives in that space next to her here.

i feel almost like a voyeur seeing them this way.

i cannot tell whether my granny is happy here
or if she wld rather ride the first wind out of this picture
but she did love him. the way she leans into him tells us that much.
after giving him 6 children, why shldn’t she?

and after being left to fend for them alone,
why shld she smile?

maybe she knew then that this moment was fleeting. maybe she was sure then that she cld raise three brown boys and three brown girls to be upstanding black men & women on her own. she was sure of her strength. and she loved him, but not more than she loved herself.

he has alzheimers today.
he doesn’t remember my mother, or me or any of his other children or grandchildren.

i’m sure he knows my granny, though. and if he was shown this picture, im sure he’d remember himself, too.

the picture is in black and white.
a sheet hangs on the wall behind them in a pattern than resembles some curtains my grandmother still has today. they, like this picture, are old, tattered, jaundiced with years.

she loves them though.
maybe they remind her of the evenings she hid from the setting sun
& kept her babies still during summer thunderstorms.

and by okay, i mean we’re in a state of stasis, locked into routine.  same schedule.  same places.  same frustrations. 

we’re holding steady, but we’re holding in a very stressful place.  but, it’s better than backsliding.  we complain, but stay thankful.

…but we do complain.

since my last entry, i moved out of the house i grew up in with my mother and grandmother.  it was tough to leave—i know they both missed me very much, and would be sad to go; and i know it’s terribly convenient having another adult in the house to watch after my grandmother when my mother couldn’t due to schedule or stress.  i felt very guilty, and still do, but i had to.

there have been priceless benefits.  i no longer feel like running away and not telling anyone where i am… i’m much more relaxed and i like this city a lot more when i have my own space.  and probably the best benefit is that without having to handle my grandmother every single day—which is exhausting—my patience has grown exponentially.  it’s easier to handle all of the crying fits, the cussing, the turned up nose, the fight over dinner and pills.  but, ironically, what is still hard for me is the obsession with affection.

ive been struggling to find the nerve to write about this for a very long time.  i mean, what kind of cold, souless little imp gets tired of being hugged and kissed and told how much they’re loved?  i want to present it in such a way that it’s easy to understand, buti don’t want to offend anyone who is missing their grandmother, who would give anything for one more hug, one more kiss.  i also don’t want to look like a callous asshole.

these are the moments that i turn to fiction, where i can hide bits and pieces of the truth in dazzling arrays of words and distract with pretty phrases and cheeky dialect.  but even that has been difficult.  

this is why i try not to journal here.  fact is often much more terrifying than fiction.

anyway, this isn’t a flowery prose piece or anything.  just an update.  we are still here, we are still breathing.  we are still nursing calloused hands and hearts and tired smiles.  we’re still laughing to keep from crying and laughing til we cry.  we’re still rioting and against the long days and lamenting the shortness of life.  we’re still trying.  still flirting with dangerous fantasies that we know we all share, but will never acknowlege.

some of us are still praying.  some of us are tired.

but we’re still here, better or worse, fact or fiction.

help us remember to be thankful for where we are
and what we have

fill our hearts with enough love and compassion
to push ourselves out of the bigger picture

forgive us our humanity
when we get angry and yell and scream and slam doors
when we can’t find the patience we need
when we choose not to look for it
when we’re fresh out of strength
remind us that it is woven into our struggle
remind us to look for it now and again

remind us of what a perfect person would do in our shoes
and help us attempt those dance steps
teach us how to not take life personally
show us how to do this
show us how to do this
show us how to do this

and whether or not we think we understand,
help us to be thankful for the lesson
if we can’t manage to look past our scars,
help us find the beauty in them

and when we lie in our beds at night,
alone with our thoughts
left with the echoes of yelling and screaming and slamming doors
help us to forgive ourselves
rather than remain our own executioners,
sitting on the floor of a locked cell,
key in hand.