[this will make more sense to you if i explain up front that my parents came from small towns in western mass and therefore i'm related to about a third (it seems) of the people in that part of the state]
i decided to call my grandmother this evening. i hadn't contacted her since 1989, when i called to let her know i was getting my degree; conversations with her tend to be somewhat stilted as we both struggle to avoid The Subject. (she thinks it's irrelevant what happened in the past, basically.
got the number from information, dialed. unfamiliar male person answered, deep rough tobacco whisper, like a heavy smoker trying not to wake someone up.
"may i speak to ruth pease?" we always called her nannie roo, but damned if i'll make a fool out of myself with a total stranger until i know whether he's related to me.
"she's asleep right now." slight note of censure and i realize it *is* rather late there. damn time zones. still, i ask when would be a good time to call. "there might not be one. she's a very sick woman."
i panic a little -- she's gotta be in her 70s now. i want to ask what's wrong but i feel like i should establish credibility, relatedness, before asking personal questions.
"this is one of her granddaughters, deb williamson, well, it's changed but it was williamson. what's wrong with her?" no answer. "are you related to me?"
"yeah, i am," he said.
"oh?: wondering which uncle or cousin, i asked who i was talking to. slight pause, then
"i'm your father."
holy shit. holy fucking shit. and nannie roo's sick enough that he's come to florence, mass from corpus christi. pause. i imagine us both being hit on the head by some large heavy objects, deer-in-the- headlights time, folks. i'm talking to a dead man.
"what's wrong with her?" i finally manage. "is it serious? is she dying?"
"she probably has stomach cancer and breast cancer." fuck. these are not things 70-year-old people recover from.
he remarks on my rudeness in calling so late, i make some lame time-difference excuse and babble about how living in chicago i should know these things better. we have maybe a ten-minute conversation, long awkward silences punctuated by random gibberish. my brain cells have gone berserk, rebelled, and taken off for switzerland. he's cool, cold, and i realize as we hang up that the last time we spoke, it was also a 10-minute phone call, back in 1982.
i'm totally mindfucked. utterly. "i'm your father" from the man who claimed for years that he had no children? so far i've cried on the phone to three different people and beaten the shit out of my wall. alan says i'm handling it better than he might have expected.
my hands hurt, my grandmother is dying, and i still cannot figure out
my father. i wanna scream and cry and kick things and smash fragile
beautiful things with a hammer. that's why this post sucks so bad --
i'm back at some primal level of feeling.
--
sine | deb
and my fucking cat's pregnant
and eating an altoids.
Subject: more grandmother angst
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 13:31:40 GMT
so i called nannie roo yesterday. my father had told her to expect my call, and she sounded so excited and happy that i was calling. she'd been waiting by the phone. she wants me to send her mail and photos and wants me to come visit. she extended that invitation a half-dozen times. "there's plenty of room here," she said, and brushed off the notion that my father would be uncomfortable (roight).
she's dying. do i want to go see her one last time before she dies and risk having to deal with my father? do i put aside all the resentment and pain and anger i feel because she didn't do anything while i was getting beaten up every day and go, take her where she is now, play nice so she can die with a clean conscience?
most importantly, will going be equivalent to ripping open all the scar tissue and tearing off the scabs and leaving myself open for more pain, more hurt?
i also have to consider whether i have enough long-sleeved shirts.
--
sine | deb
who does have an amtrak reservation for the 11th
but can cancel up until the 2nd.
Subject: if it ain't baroque, it's not my family
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 07:46:57 GMT
or, the plot sickens.
my little sister called my grandmother today, talked to her for a while, then talked to my father. he doesn't want any of us to come up there. claims she doesn't remember who we are, that it would be too stressful for him. so now i've got to call him tuesday and inform him that i've decided to go. i'm not looking forward to it. he can just be stressed.
i've got your fucking stress, buddy. you and your psychotic second
wife stole my older sister, my brother, my dreams and hopes for a
future, my belief that i can love and be loved --
all these things
you ripped from me because it was convenient, because you didn't
understand me and wouldn't even try. now you're trying to steal my
grandmother and my last chance to see her alive and see her house
where all the happy memories live.
fuck you. you want me to give up my grandmother because it'd be easier for you not having to confront evidence of your past every day. tough shit. i feel no obligation to make you feel better, to play nice for you, to ease your conscience. where the fuck were you when i was first diagnosed as depressive in 1981 and all i needed was your signature on some air force insurance forms? where were you when i was watching blood pouring from an open vein into a plastic cup last summer? where were you when i was heating a coin in a candle flame until it smoked then pressing it down hard on the soft white flesh of inner arm, pressing harder the more it hurt?
for 13 years, you've claimed to have no children. now it's my turn. i don't have a father. my father died when i was a teenager. it was either suicide or murder; the jury's still out.
--
sine | deb
wanting desperately a teddy bear, a backrub, to be held
and knowing that dealing even though she's not going to get
any of those things means she's a grown-up
but tonight a grown-up who will sleep with her arms wrapped
around a stuffed toy lion cub
Subject: i have to call my father tonight
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 22:24:25 GMT
some person is babbling at me about why can't spss read his quattro file, it has a lotus extension and i have to sit here and listen fuck you assholes i don't care if you're not happy because you don't like my answers or don't like that there isn't a fucking way to do what you want done without rewriting the program and i'm not in development, goddammit.
why no, i'm not stressed at all. feel fine. gonna call my daddy tonight and defy him, tell him that i don't care if it stresses him out for a few days, i want to see my grandmother before she dies or it'll stress me out for years.
--
"and i hate disintegration, black winged roses" tori amos
Subject: Re: i have to call my father tonight, the update
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 1995 15:20:21 GMT
i called him. he was cold, frigid as lake michigan about now. he said he wouldn't try to stop me, but he didn't want me there.
i told him i have no expectations. "tracy kept hoping for a long time. i didn't. i just want to see my grandmother once more before she dies.
he forbade me to look shocked by her appearance. he thinks he's going to get her well enough to walk, even though they have hospice care.
after the call, i was in tears, so i called my grandmother's brother to ask him what he thought i should do. got a lot of interesting information. my uncle said 1 month, two at the outside. she has bone, brain, stomach, and breast cancer and is refusing all medical attention. she's been going downhill for months, but kept working up until she had to crawl up the steps of the church she worked for because she was too weak to walk up them.
my father and grandmother are locked in their own private world of denial. i realized that even more when i heard what the extended family had been told about us; for example, my brother died of a seizure. his death certificate said so. he'd been supporting himself and going to the full gospel businessman's club or whatever.
they heard that he was strung out on drugs and that that was why my father disowned him and that he died of a drug overdose.
they were told my stepmonster had died of cancer, but it was actually internal bleeding due to severe liver abuse because of drinking.
i wonder what the story is on me? i'm trying to decide now if i should go up there and tell them all the truth, testify about what happened to me and to tracy and to bobby. no wonder they didn't do anything; they didn't realize there was anything to be done.
--
sine | deb
but i've decided. i'm going
Subject: am i doing the right thing?
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 1995 22:47:51 GMT
this is gnawing at me. i'm not doing my work. i just realized, i am actively sitting here not working. not that i'm behind, just that i'm not working.
i've got train reservations. leave here at 7.15 on the 17th, get to springfield, mass, at 2.30 pm on the 18th. take a bus to northampton, find a motel, call various people to let them know i'm there. on the 19th, visit my grandmother, other relatives, and the place where my mother and brother are buried. i'll need roses. midafternoon on the 20th, take a bus back to springfield so i can catch the 6.45 pm train back there. get home right around 1 pm on friday.
i just wish i *knew* this was the Right Thing to do.
--
sine | deb
who will take many books.