You mean to tell me?
Growing up I always thought my family was a it odd. My mom wasn’t the cool mom and my dad wore jeans on the beach. I was their third child and the youngest grandchild, so the care to be cool was widdled down to bare bones by the time I was school aged. I was safe and loved and cared for, listened to and laughed with and given ample attention, blah blah blah, My life was good but our family’s level cool was minimal, at best.
The older I get though, the more I realize that the parents that let their kids drive out of town at 16 un supervised and the moms that let their daughters wear strapless dresses to Sunday school and the Dad’s who didn’t use phrases like, “I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday, darlin’.” people who had grandparents that didn’t show up to their dance recitals or that sat on the porch and peeled peaches and told stories or parents that didn’t make you write interview questions to ask your great grandmothers and grandparents to film them so you could watch it when you were older and hear their voices again…. Were actually less cool than my parents and grandparents.
My grandfather drove me to pre school when I was younger. Id ride with him to his office and he would do a few tasks before dropping me by the church program I was a part of. We would ride and he would tell me stories about my mom and tell me lies like all dogs are boys and all cats are girls. He would be the person I would call in high school about random things that were going on because I just wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t invested in anybody but me. I’d tell him what I was excited about and what I was scared of and And he’d tell me things like “if it don’t make your hands sweat a little it ain’t worth doin.’” Making me feel like I might just make it all the way through high school without completely deteriorating.
My Dad would be the one I’d run to in 11th grade when all my friends disappeared on me and played a prank on me so hateful I couldn’t think straight. I’d skip school and run into his dorky office while he typed on his computer that was half broke and I’d collapse into his lap like a 4 year old and cry so hard I couldn’t breathe. And he would pray and ask God to make it make sense soon and look at me and say, “ you mean to tell me you let one person tell you that you couldn’t do something, and you believed them? Well I have confidence in you, I know you can do it.”
My senior year was blurred with the Great Recession and the loss of loved ones and break ups and family illness. My mom would stop me before walking out the door for school and she would make me put “put on the full armor of God so I could take my stand against the devils schemes.” And I would stand there and roll my eyes and pretend to put on the armor before walking out the door. I’d open my backpack at school and laying on top of my binder would be a notecard telling me everything was going to be ok with a bible verse written under it.
My grandmother used to tell me that silk pajamas and pie on Saturday were sure fire ways to make for a few things to look forward to. So she’d take me birthday shopping every year and while I picked out what I wanted she would pick me out a pair of silk pajamas because something in her knew that I’d need something to look forward to when all my homework was done. Thanksgiving and Christmas and every Saturday in-between that I spent with her, the pie was always available. Because she knew that sometimes life was harder than it had to be but silk pajamas at bed time and chocolate pie on the weekends made life more bearable when it couldn’t be stood much longer.
My paternal grandfather would show me that life can indeed be lived without a hand. He lost is left one long before I was born and I never once saw his life slow down. He would make tomato sandwiches with full layers of mayo, black pepper and salt and slice his tomatoes thick. He’d point at them and tell me it was my turn to make them for him while he told me that the only people in life that fail are the ones that just lay down and give up. It would take me 15 years after his death to remember layering that mayonnaise on wonder bread and those words be the only words that carried me through a valley of depression about where I was in life.
When my paternal grandmother would call me in college and make sure I got the farmers almanac she sent me in the mail so I would know when to get my garden in, I’d roll my eyes while walking up the stairs of my apartment building. But she would be there to answer my questions about growing herbs on the balcony and making homemade biscuits and chicken n dumplings and she’d laugh and teach me that cookin’ in the kitchen is a movement and an understanding, not a strict orderly place with a million rules. You make your own rules. “Hon, you’re the captain of that boat.”
So, I’d go through life with my silk pajama sets and bad attempts at chocolate pie and I’d hold onto my value when people tell my I can’t do what I set out to do. I buckle up with the belt of truth and remember that everything will be ok while I do something worth doing and I know it’s worth doing because my hands are sweating. I’d make a tomato sandwich in the summer on white bread and I try to do it with one hand and I tell myself that giving up isn’t an option because I am the captain of my boat. And I’d do all of it because my family just wasn’t very cool.