Grandma Dynamics

"Well, you'll be sorry one day. I might not be around too much longer. You'll feel bad when they put me in the ground and throw dirt in my face."

I was nine or ten years old when she first started warning me that I'd be sorry after she died. Those warnings would come when I failed to kowtow in some shape or form. For example: At one point she decided MeeMaw was a much cuter handle than Grandma, and she wanted me to start calling her that instead. She offered bribes, which I refused, because the whole thing made me feel weird. I don't think I'd have been capable of consistently remembering to call her a new name if I tried anyway.

Every day after school, she treated me to fresh, hot, fried cornbread. Good, good stuff. But the way she carried on about it in front of other people, telling everybody how she went out of her busy way every day to make me fried cornbread, forcing me to acknowledge in front of whoever it was that yes, I was spoiled - Well, it made the cornbread less tasty, like I was paying a dear price for it in lost dignity.

Every year at Christmas she grilled me about what the other set of grandparents had given me in gifts. Pretty soon I figured out this wasn't just a friendly question - it was a way to put down the other side of the family, because she'd say things like "Is that all?" and remind me of what I'd gotten at her house. That made for hard feelings, because I naturally felt some loyalty to my other grandmother, who wasn't participating in this competition.

What she wanted was to be told she was the best grandmother. But she was so fierce and manipulative in her PR campaign, she earned herself the category exactly opposite the one she wanted. One time I was talking to a friend who knows my family, and I mentioned my grandmother. "Which one?" He asked, looking for a quick way to clarify. "Good grandma, or bad grandma?" The names stuck.

Bad grandma did not like house cats. She couldn't understand that other people might. "How old is that cat now?" She'd ask occasionally. "Well, he can't live too much longer, can he? When that one dies, you're not going to get another one, are you?"

So last week when my Mom called to tell me the grandmother was dead, one of the first stunned thoughts I had was "Holy Shit, the cat outlived her."

Even though she was within shouting distance of 90, it was still a surprise. All that stuff about "One day I'll be dead and you'll be sorry" was like crying wolf. She said it the last time I talked to her. I'd heard so much about it over the years I never really thought it would happen.

It's hard when you lose someone you had a troubled relationship with, because you're confused about your sense of loss. You think back over your years of memories and don't know what to feel. I stood next to the casket and waited to feel, like she warned, awful. But I found that since I was no longer under her watchful, appraising eye, a well of gratitude opened up in me. Thank you, I thought. Thank you for all of that cornbread, and those rides to places, and for picking me up at school when I was sick.

Now that's she's not here to try to manipulate and pry appreciation out of me, it's free to come out. It felt good to finally meet it.

But the thing I'm most grateful for, and it brings me to tears to think about it, is that she lived out her life in her home. She had lots of friends and acquaintances. She had all her wits about her. She'd been shopping and to church just days before. And my mother was with her when she died.

I don't think it gets any better than that, and I'm endlessly thankful she got to have it that way.

Comments

[Bily The Blogging Poet]

Wow... I'm not good with these things... I worry about you, Budd, Tina and Danny but I'm not much help.

[Tina]

What you described is exactly how I felt about my mother. She was very similar to your description. As much as I grieve for my father after 15 years, and my own grandmother, I rarely grieve my mother for those very reasons. A well-written and thoughtful post, and I'm glad you shared your feelings about that. Love with conditions is really difficult, and I can truly say I understand.