Things that are shared and things that are not

Damon

My grandmother disliked me.
A lot.
But boy, did she love my big sister and little brother.

Let me explain. It wasn’t all in my head, I promise. Rather, it was a constant source of trouble for my family. Every visit that Grandma V. and Grandpa K., my dad’s parents, made to our mountain home, or the few visits we made back to their Iowa farm, were tainted by this constant sense of dissonance between how she treated me and my siblings.

Par example. When I was six or so, Grandma V. brought my sister a set of hand-crocheted doll clothes, a case to keep them in, and a doll to wear them (Grandma always referred to her crochet habit as ‘crotchet-ing.’ I’m not sure why). For me, she brought – toy surprises from cereal boxes.
On a later visit, when I was around ten, Grandma and Grandpa brought their camper. It was better for family accord if they weren’t in the house. My sister, and then my brother, were invited to spend a few nights in the camper. Such a treat! Like camping in a movable house, and special breakfast too! (My grandparents were quite fond of hot Jell-o as a morning drink.)
My sister and brother each stayed a couple nights in a row; I was not asked. I don’t know if it was I that noticed this, or my parents, but they had a big fight with my grandparents, and I got to spend a single night in the camper, too. I only remember feeling nervous the whole time; it was still fun to be in a house on a truck bed, though.

I could go on, believe me. The dislike my grandma held for me was inescapable (Grandpa was a different story – he liked all three of us kids equally).
And like I said before, Grandma was no fan of my Mom either. Undoubtedly, what she experienced, as an adult married to Grandma’s son, was a different kind of cross to bear: belittling, fault-finding, mocking, ignoring…it wasn’t pretty. I know, because I heard Mom’s tears and petitions to Dad to stand up for her, whenever his folks came to visit.
For my childhood years, I relied on my parents to explain, and defend me from, the way that Grandma talked down to me, ignored me, radically favored my sister and brother…as a kid, these things don’t make sense. Dad offered a trifold explanation many times over the years: 1) Mom was not the woman Grandma wished he had married; 2) I was just like Mom; and, 3) Grandma had always wanted a daughter of her own.
All three of these things were true. Point 1 was outside my purview, but Dad seemed convinced (and still is – Grandma wanted him to marry his previous girlfriend). No one could deny point 2, since I looked, sounded, and followed my Mom in everything. I have never fully understood what it was about my Mom which Grandma disliked so much, and thus consequently disliked in me. (But I am so OK with being like my Mom; she’s still a primary role model for me. I even write my ‘L’s like her, get mad like her, etc etc.)
Point 3 was a bit dissatisfactory, since it explained Grandma’s favoritism of my sister, but not my little brother. But then, my little brother was the spitting image of my dad: a grubby monster addicted to trucks and guns. Come to think of it, my sister was much like Dad, as well…a tomboy happier out with him reloading rifles, than in the kitchen with Mom.
Guess where I was?

So anyway, yeah. Grandma’s visits were not pleasant for me, or for my Mom. By the time I was a teen, I understood more of the reasons for Grandma’s bitterness, but that didn’t make it any easier. Plus, when I hit my teen years, I found small ways to bite back at her – a fact of which I am fully ashamed. I know why I would find ways to belittle her back if I could, or provoke argument, but it’s still an embarrassment to me.

All of this is to set the scene for something that happened on one of the last visits my family made to Iowa to see Grandma and Grandpa – before I moved out for college, and everything which came after. This was not a visit of the whole family – just me, my brother and Dad.
I was upstairs and found a copy of Emily Dickinson on the bookshelf. I was just starting to like Emily (which blossomed into full-scale adoration); I’d always been addicted to books, and would read any moment I could (even now, I walk and read, as all my friends can attest).
I came downstairs later with this collection of poems, and there was Grandma, sitting in the parlor doing her ‘crotchet-ing.’ She asks me what I’m reading, and I show her.
“Oh, I love Emily Dickinson.”
And she goes on to quote her favorite poem, the whole brief piece. I had been drawn to this particular poem, as well. I was a fairly observant teen, and it didn’t escape me that this was the first time, ever, where my Grandma and I had seemingly found a shared interest. There were two of us…
I know it now, as I knew it then: my perception of her – the years of slights and veiled insults – shifted almost imperceptibly. I thought better of her, and feared her less…a little, at least. And maybe, she hated me a little less. Not just because of liking the same poet, but because of all that this one poem implies about internal worlds (don’t worry, I copied it in below). Somewhere inside her and inside me, something responds to Emily’s particular words. And that was so unexpected for me; to find a connection, however thin, with a woman like Grandma V. Part of our insides was the same.
It healed a lot of the past. Maybe it healed something in her too; I don’t know.
Grandma V. died fairly rapidly of a brain tumor within a few years. I did not see her in those last years, and couldn’t attend the funeral.

I have that exact copy of Emily’s poems; Grandma let me take it when we departed. Every time I read Ms. Dickinson, and especially that one poem, I think of Grandma V: of her eyes running over the same lines; of why that poem was meaningful to her; of her casually reciting it to me. Poems reveal so much of us…I could almost exegete an entirely different future for Grandma V and me, based on two brief stanzas from an eccentric genius. And I think I know a little bit more about Grandma’s internal world.

I shared one moment of tenuous, untrammeled connection with a woman who had spent her life actively ignoring or despising me. That’s wonder and grace, my friends.


I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

        - Emily Dickinson


Pythias reponds


To be quite honest, I struggled to respond to this in a way that did not involve pointed phrases accentuated with calling your grandmother things that start with a ‘b’, an ‘a’, a ‘c’, another ‘b’ (not as serious as the first), or an ‘m’ paired with an ‘f’.  

Such a sad, joyless experience she created for herself and then transferred on to others.  Life may not always play out as one would like, but to be so ruled by a long passed disappointment that mistreating a child seems justified just hints at what a sad, hollow woman she must have been.  In my studies the question has been raised concerning whether its easier to suffer the absence of a family member and wonder who they are rather than to have them and simply suffer instead.  Is the curiosity of what one might be missing easier to bear than the confirmation of disappointment?

I am impressed that a woman of that type cared for anything at all.  Her specific selection within Dickinson tells me that she felt a grudge against so many who achieve more than herself.  Its a bit like telling someone you love the Bible and then reciting off the verse about rich people struggling to reach salvation because you are unhappy with your poverty.  The poem selected could be her way of giving her finger to any who have accomplishments to their name.  A poem about embracing individuality becomes a testament of bitterness with a life that was perceived to lack sufficient accomplishment.

I would like to think if she were alive that she could find meaning and satisfaction in all the amazing things you have accomplished.  It seems doubtful though.  All the beauty in the world couldn’t break the ring of selfishness around the heart of a person who harms a child to make themselves feel better..  I am truly sorry for the deprivation of a loving grandmother.