Part of My Family Tree or What Happens When You Can't Say No

Being young is hard. Being young and female, in a time when a woman’s education is to be in the home arts can’t make things easier at all. Add a good dose of poverty and the dominant feeling that at the time a woman without a man is incomplete, and you have a tough life.

You have my grandmother.

I often fantasized that had she been born in my generation we would have been best of friends. She seemed like she had a lot going on in her mind, but just lacked the words to express it. And she lacked the family to support her. My mother was always one to condemn her and applaud her at the same time. I heard tell that my grandfather controlled her, but I only saw him once or twice so can’t say. I do remember he made me doll furniture and grandma said he loved me very much.

My grandmother was amazing when it came to crafts. She made pillows and dolls and knit and just everything you can imagine. At Christmas time the house was filled with decorations and not one, but three trees that she proudly displayed and showed off to everyone who came in the house. The light in her eyes outshone those from the trees.

It was hard talking to her at times, as she didn’t have the words. When she worked it was usually doing things such as sorting books at a shelter or other such tasks. She was so proud when she was around intelligent women though, and loved telling me those stories as best she could.

“So she went to whatchyoumcallit sweetie, she did. She’s very smart. And she did this thing, you know? And she’s retired from the thingibob and now we work together sorting clothes.” She’d tell me, as she explained her day. At times it seemed like every third word or so was a replacement word – a ‘whatchoo’ or ‘thingie.’ Was it just excitement or did she really just not have the language? Unfortunately, I think it was the latter because even in calm times I just couldn’t understand her.

Yet, I loved listening to her stories. I should clarify that this is my father’s mother. I never met my mother’s mom. My mother reluctantly ‘allowed’ her to baby-sit my brother and I one year, as there was no other option that was affordable. After that summer the visits tapered, even though my grandmother never condemned my mother or blamed anyone for the divorce.

Grandma also loved to cook. Not that she was good at it. Many a time did we have gritty candies and an odd mixture of flavors (think garlic brownies), but her family praised her as the domestic goddess she was taught to be.

When Grandma told stories they were seldom about herself. They were about some relative she was proud of who was wounded in war and ended up with a metal plate in his head. I think he was in a truck that hit a mine. He was her hero, I believe in her story he was riding around saving people when the fighting got in the way of his adventure. Sometimes she spoke of the craft fairs she went too and how people praised her dolls, but usually it focused on the other people in her life – how hard her husband worked, how proud she was of her daughter the butcher (who lived with her as well).

This also led to grandmother never really showing me how to sew, or crochet, or knit as she didn’t want to talk about herself (other than to say she had no choice in the matter when talking about her lack of education) and she encouraged my education. In fact, she paid for a party to celebrate my graduation from highschool. One that, unfortunately, she didn’t attend (she couldn’t drive and I think my mom said she wouldn’t drive her back home). So we had it without her.

But, what is the point of me writing this besides some nostalgia for a woman I once knew? The point is the one story she told my brother and I, a story she had kept bottled up inside for a long time.

It was about my father.

And her father.

Between her sobs she spoke about how she didn’t have the strength to say no when her father wanted to take her son. Through tears we heard little snippets of how she knew what he would do, because her father had done it to her when she was little. But she felt responsible now for what my father had done to my brother, because she didn’t have the strength to stop the cycle from continuing.

It’s a harrowing moment to have happen. All the moments there are- she was taken by her dad and couldn’t say no when he wanted our dad. My brother was taken. And now, there we were, both under the age of ten listening but not quite understanding what she was saying.

We held her hand as she cried, knowing she needed something and not really cognizant of the weight she had carried so long. This was her story – the one she never wanted to revisit but it was eating her up too much not to. She had been taught to always do what her father said. Even though she knew he was wrong, she couldn’t say no.

She just couldn’t say no.

But while she felt that was her legacy, it’s not. She loved me. She loved her entire family and always did what she could to keep them clothed and fed and clean. As powerless as she felt, she still fought hard to love everyone. She was proud of everything anyone accomplished – no matter how others might have viewed it. The problem is now, when I’ve tried to reconnect with her it’s just apologies. I haven’t seen her since I was young, it was forbidden after a time (even though my mother still accepted money). She is sorry she didn’t stand up to my mother more, but was afraid we wouldn’t be allowed to her house anymore as eventually happened. She’s sorry she didn’t talk sooner about things that were going on. I do hope she forgives herself soon as I have. She was an oasis for me. I loved going to grandma’s house. And that one story she did tell of herself, it shows me what I have to face, an evil that goes back a long ways. I’m glad she had the strength to tell us what had happened, and what does happen when you don’t have the strength to say no.

photo from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Emirgan_04589.jpg