A Glimpse of Grandma
The following blog post was originally posted on www.HRHandthePrincess.blogspot.com.
Written by The Princess
My parents got divorced when I was six and my mom took me and my sister to live with Grandma in Fitzgerald, Georgia. From that moment until I moved to Tifton when I was 20, I saw my Grandma every day of my life. Even after we moved out, we still went to Grandma’s house on the bus after school every day. We had dinner with her every night. Mom was always working, and when she wasn’t, she was sleeping, so in a way, Grandma was actually our primary caregiver.
Because Grandma was the age of a grandma and not of a mother, she couldn’t chase two kids around, though there were times when she tried. Usually with a switch in her hand. Adeptly adjusting to her shortcomings, she turned to guilt and emotional distress as ways of keeping my sister and myself in check. Her favorites always involved our mother’s death.
If you and A. keep fighting, you’re gonna stress your mama and you know stress gives you cancer.
Your mama already smokes so she’s probably already got cancer, but if she doesn’t, you two arguing is gonna give it to her.
Your mama is going to die someday and you two will be the only people on Earth you can turn to.
My sister and I fought a lot, as most kids do, but apparently our fights had super powers that were potentially fatal. I remember one time A and I were fighting in the backyard and Grandma came out screaming at the top of her lungs and literally beating at her breasts, “You two are trying to kill me! My two granddaughters are trying to kill me!” She screeched for what must have been five minutes. “Do you know that my bladder is hanging out of my vagina? Do you want to see it? Come in the bathroom and look at it, then you won’t treat me this way any more!”
Grandma had some mysterious bladder issue that involved a botched re-attachment surgery that left her bladder hanging precariously between her labia at all times. Now that I am older and have studied anatomy, I realize that this is not physically possible, however, at the age of 8, it scared the shit out of me. I vividly remember an afternoon with Grandma when we ended up in a screaming match over whether I was going to join her in the bathroom to take a look at her nether regions.
The bladder threat ran a close second place to, “Your mom’s going to die and it will be your fault.”
Grandma died a few years ago. My last encounter with her involved her commenting on my outfit which barely showed my stomach. ”Susan. Nobody’s navel is pretty.”
Now, my grandma did a lot of wonderful things over the years and went way above and beyond when it came to caregiving and child rearing, but the thing is, people, those stories just aren’t as interesting.
