Blog Exchange: Mother May I, Part 1

Please welcome my guest blogger Vicki from Spells with… for the May Blog Exchange! I’m hanging out over at her site today, so be sure to come visit.
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My mother’s mother was not a part of my life, so much so that I don’t even call her my grandmother most times. My only memory of her was of her lying in a hospital bed, possible in a coma, but I was so young I couldn’t possibly know the difference between napping and coma. My mom was distraught, and I was confused for many reasons. Though it seems obvious now, why my mother would be so upset, the world was black and white to me then, and the things I knew of my grandmother made me very curious about my mom’s reaction to the visit in hospital.

My confusion was partially because I simply didn’t really understand that she was dying. She may have died that very day for all I knew. My brothers and sisters and I didn’t go to her funeral, and though I am assuming that my parents went, there was no talk of it. I feel as though my grandmother was always talked about in the past tense.

The other reason that I was so confused by my mother’s sorrow, was because of the family folk lore surrounding this woman. She was a horrible woman, as my father would tell it. She was responsible for making my mother’s childhood a nightmare. He even had little anecdotes he would pull out of his back pocket just to demonstrate what a zealous fanatical fundamentalist nut she was.

A family standard: The Rolaids Story. My parents were visiting my grandmother and grandfather for dinner one evening. Afterwards, they sat on the porch and attempted to have stifled conversation. My dad begins to complaining of a stomach ache (And no, its not a part of my dad’s story that this might’ve been a little bit impolite to go on about a stomach ache after eating a dinner that my grandmother had cooked for them). Without any word, my grandpa walks off the porch. He returns a few minutes later, having walked to the corner store. And hands my dad a packet of Rolaids. As legend has it, my grandmother now went postal on my grandfather, for having interfered with the will of God in regards to the stomach ache.

Eh hem….If I hear that story one more time, I’m gonna need a packet of Rolaids. The stories all took this basic format. Someone just a perfectly natural thing, and grandmother goes postal on their ass.

And so I was confused. I thought that if my mom didn’t have contact with this woman, it would clearly be for the better. She would be happier, right? Why was she so sad sitting here in this hospital next to my grandmother’s bed? Everything was played out exactly in that way. And after years and years, I think that my father’s folklore of my grandmother probably prevented my mom from having the grief and mourning time that she needed. It certainly prevented her from ever really speaking about her mother. My father would tell his tales, and she would sit in silence, as if she didn’t even know the person he was speaking of.

My mother’s mother was an over-zealous fanatical fundamentalist nut. There was no mistake about that. Even my mother and grandpa would admit that. But she was a mother. And she was my mom’s mom. She was the one who comforted her when she skinned her knees, and the one who brushed out her hair, and the one who sat next to her while she said her nightly prayers.

About a year ago, my mom came out to visit me for a few days surrounding Little A’s dance recital. And one morning, she told me that her mother hadn’t been so bad. It was both shocking and not. My father wasn’t there to contradict and tell his tales. And she had plenty of her own stories about how strict her mother had been. But she also had stories about dresses that her mother made for her. Time they spent cooking and crafting together. She had stories about love. Love that all mothers and daughters have. And that no husband with endless legends or anyone else can obliterate.

This post is a part of our May Blog Exchange on the theme Mother May I. Click around to read some of the other posts: Nancy, Vicki, Julie, Chase, Stacy, Christina, Jen, Mabel, TB, Mel, Izzy, Mayberry Mom, Amy, and Laurie. If you’d like to participate in the June Exchange, please email Kristen at kmei26 at yahoo.com. Enjoy!