Grandma and the Secret Weapon

I wrote this piece several years ago when I was participating in a story teller's club. It was written in the format for speaking in story form. It needs much work before ever being presented as a story teller, but thought I would post it anyway. I have been advised to break it down into two, perhaps three different stories, and perhaps someday I will.

Note: For those family members reading this….those early wounds of childhood have been healed. I love my family dearly, and miss Roger greatly. Growing up was hard on all of us, but maturity has brought stronger relationships. For this I am very grateful.



Grandma and the Secret Weapon


Growing up can be rough! None of us get to choose our families, our circumstances. I think we can all agree that childhood has its tough moments. Now, I know that, many times, our perceptions of our childhood tie in with our personality types. There are the Eor’s of Winnie the Pooh fame, who see life as one big black hole, and there are the Anne’s of Green Gables who never met a situation in life that couldn’t be made into glorious fantasy! The rest of us fall somewhere in between!

Now my family, like most American families, had it’s problems. Ours centered around Dad. Dad’s childhood was about as bad as they come. His Mom was about as cantankerous and crazy as you can imagine. The locals called his family white trash…perhaps for good reason. I don’t know what instigated it, but one time Granny tied dad to a bedpost and beat him so severely that the scalp was separated from his forehead and blood was flowing freely. His sisters were screaming and begging her to stop.

Dad would work hard in the cotton fields, dragging behind him 100 lb. bags of cotton, saving up his money for the car he had his eye on. And once he achieved his goal, he would drive around town, taking personal joy in passing the school bus in his convertible on his way to school. He showed them he wasn’t white trash!

Dad left home for good at the age of 17 when he came home one day to find his mom in bed with a young man his age. He was angry and said so. She was angry and threatened to call the police on him. He got in his car and never looked back. She died at the age of 76 from cirrhosis of the liver. Later in his life, once he was married and with us kids, Dad would try to be the good son and visit Granny on occasion. It never ended happily. And he was never able to fully forgive her the sins committed against him. He carried those wounds to his grave.

And he also carried those sins out on us!!! Though he never touched a drop of the alcohol that killed his mom, he could rage like an alcoholic just the same. And, of course, us kids learned to behave the same. On occasion fistfights would break out amongst my 3 older brothers. And it wasn’t uncommon to tease each other in such hateful ways, as only children can do. There isn’t much a child isn’t willing to say to another child that slices to the core, bringing tears, anger, rejection. I can remember once coming into the house after playing with my brothers, feeling wounded from their teasing and needing comfort from Mom. Her response to me was to teach me a little poem. I’m sure you’ve heard it…Sticks and Stones? Well, I took her words to heart, feeling prepared for the very next time it happened. And it didn’t take very long to get the opportunity. I stood up straight, hands on my hips, chin held high, and quoted “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. And I waited to see their faces fall in defeat, knowing that I had gotten the best of them. And, instead, they fell over in laughter, and only teased louder. I never said the poem again. And their words continued to hurt.


Dad met mom in 1950 at a drive inn in Gainesville, Texas. He soon adopted her parents as his. And it was at Grandma and Papa’s that I have so many memories as a child growing up. Get togethers meant cramming into their small house for several days to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas, and any other time that we could make the 14 hour drive from the Rio Grand Valley to near the Oklahoma border. Us kids were always excited to see the aunts and uncles and the cousins…well, at least most of the cousins. There was one…oh my…how my heart loathed him for years to come. The king of cruelty was cousin Kirk! One Christmas he opened up his present from Grandma…Grandma didn’t have much money to speak of…she bought the presents from green stamps…and it was a pair of roller skates, the kind with the key that you tighten over your tennis shoes. We all got roller skates that year. As soon as he got outside from the celebration of opening presents, he held up the skates and in a loud clear voice that all the neighbor children could hear, he asked “Anyone want a pair of roller skates”? The ungrateful, spoiled little brat!

This ungrateful, spoiled little brat was also bigger and older than me. One evening, as we were all finding a place to bed down for the night, the cousins ended up in the living room, on the floor, trying to settle down and fall to sleep. The lights were out, and everyone was cuttin’ up like children do when they are all together in one room and fighting off sleep for one last joke. I was lying there, enjoying the banter, when in the soft glow of the street lamp outside the window, I see Cousin Kirk on all fours near my head. He lifts his back leg, like a dog at a tree, his crotch right in my face, and farts. Now, remember we all had our fathers temper. I was immediately up from my pallet, grabbing my pillow on the way up, and screaming “I’ll teach you a lesson” and fired away at him with that deadly feather pillow. Even in my fury I was afraid to hurt someone. I’m certain that feather pillow didn’t do much harm. But I kept swinging away as he just laid there and laughed harder and harder, my brothers joining in. For years to come my words came back to me from the smart mouth of Cousin Kirk…”I’ll teach you a lesson…hahaha”. Boy, I hated my Cousin Kirk.

Years later, after Kirk went to Rice University and earned a degree as a doctor, he was diagnosed with Wilson’s Disease. It’s a disorder where copper cannot be eliminated from the body. So the mineral just builds up in your body until it eventually kills you. Life expectancy isn’t much passed the 40’s. When I first heard this, I really didn’t feel much sympathy for him. After all, it’s Cousin Kirk. But his illness changed him. He road a motorcycle all the way from Texas to Southern California, where I was living at the time, and sat in the Jacuzzi with me and repented. He told me he had always been jealous of the Taylors and had wished that he had been a part of our family. To him we seemed normal, stable, warm, connected. And I suppose that was true, though I was struggling with family relationships at the time. It was an eye opening experience for me. I let go of my judgment and forgave him. He is still alive today, though his illness has left him disabled. He has to take medication to control seizures. He struggles functioning on his own, but he is determined to do so. He comes by on occasion, desiring to connect, quite eccentric, but loving.

Meanwhile, back at Grandma’s house. The visits there were always loud, full of smoke and 42, that marvelous domino game that is slowly being forgotten by the younger generations. Hours were spent around the dining room table, seeing who could beat Papa and his partner. Grandma would get so desperate to beat him that she developed a system to ‘talk under the table’ with my mom when they would play together. She would leave the number of fingers on one hand on the edge of the table to let mom know what suit she was strong in so that they would know if they could outbid Papa. Mom told me this years later. I would never have guessed this fine, upstanding, Baptist woman would lower herself to cheating at 42, but she did!

One night, when I was 12 and we were again at Grandma’s, it was getting close to bedtime. I was thirsty, so I went to the fridge for a Dr. Pepper. I took it out of the fridge and prepared to open it. Grandma saw me and quickly said, “now, Alice, don’t drink that this late, or you’ll wet the bed”. I looked at her and scoffed…. “Grandma, I’m not going to wet the bed”…after all, I was 12 years old! I hadn’t wet the bed in, what, 8, 9 years? I could hold my Dr. Pepper, thank you very much!

It must not have been a trip with a lot of people, because that night I got to sleep with Grandma. Now, sleeping with Grandma was an adventure! For one thing, she snored loudly enough to make the windows rattle. And for another, her bed was ancient. When she laid her much larger body on the bed next to mine, the bed was tilted by several inches her direction! It was like trying to go to sleep on the side of a hill! I would jump between the sheets and, hanging on to the edge of the bed, and try so desperately to fall asleep first. I could usually talk her into telling me a story before falling to sleep. I rarely would fall asleep first, but I would certainly try.

In the wee hours of the morning I began to dream. I was back home, in the backyard, and there was a fox hole and I was in it, with another kid, and there was a war going on! A big WWII kind of war that I had seen on the movies with John Wayne. And I was the carrier of a secret weapon. All I had to do was wait for the command to release the secret weapon and we would win the war.

The time came. The call went out! “Release the secret weapon”!!!! And release it I did! The next thing I know I am startled awake by my grandma saying “whoop, whoop, whoop” and jumping out of bed, her night gown soaked from my secret weapon.

I sheepishly got out of bed and helped her clean up, completely humbled by my grandmother’s greater wisdom!

Years went by. I can remember telling the story to friends. I would tell the story and my friends and I would just laugh and laugh at the silliness of the dream, my secret weapon, and my Grandma’s ‘whoop, whoop, whoop’.

In 1993 I got a phone call that Grandma had passed away. I was now living in Northern California, much of the difficult family relationships now healed, and I packed my bag for the flight back to Texas to burry my grandmother. So many memories flooded my mind, and I journaled out my tears as the miles quickly passed beneath the plane. A simple song I had learned played over and over in my mind…

Because You gave Your life
And paid my price
You died for me
God’s perfect sacrifice

I will live forever, evermore, forevermore

Because you shed your blood
And took my blame
Oh, lamb of God
You washed away my shame

I will live forever, 3x’s
evermore, forevermore

And I will praise you, worship you
And serve you, forevermore

Because you rose again
To God’s right hand
Death could not hold You
Sinless Son of Man

I will live forever, evermore, forevermore

And when you come again
And trumpets blare
The dead will rise and meet You in the air

I will live forever, 3x’s
evermore, evermore

…and I could see my grandmother free at last from the Alzheimer’s that took away her quality of life those last few years. I could see her dancing in the arms of Jesus, at peace, full of life, and it was a comfort to my heart.

The funeral was a normal funeral. Nothing special that I remember in particular. I do remember that the old woman in the casket didn’t look much at all like my grandmother. I did take one of the plants and carry it with me back on the plane to California. And it has made it back to Texas these many years later. It still thrives in the corner by the dining room windows.

What I do remember very clearly was going back to the hotel, and all of us gathering in one room. We told Grandma stories and reminisced the good ol’ days on 301 Belcher Street. We all had our favorite stories. And I decided to tell mine. I thought I was just repeating an oft’ told story, but the family sat there enraptured, bursting out into laughter when I got to the ‘whoop, whoop, whoop’….and I then realized an amazing thing! My grandmother had not told a soul!!!! If it had been anyone else I had released my secret weapon on, I would have never stopped hearing about it. But my Grandmother didn’t shame me. She saw my embarrassment and knew it was enough.

I hadn’t realize while she was still living what a wonderful gift she had given me. But in her death, as we sat around talking about our beloved Grandma, I was overwhelmed by a deep feeling of love and appreciation, that someone in my family in those early years would honor me rather than shame me. My heart swelled up with gratitude, and in my journal that night, I thanked her while I watched her dancing in the arms of Jesus.

Thanksgiving

It's that time of year when families plan to spend time with extended family members. It's the busiest travel time of the year. Thanksgiving is a great idea; a time to reflect and be thankful for all the good things that we have experienced this year; a time to be grateful for our blessings, and in particular, grateful for family and friends.

I will admit that the older I get the harder these vacation times are. I don't regret the direction my life has taken, for I truly cannot see how it could have been any different, and being single has it's benefits. Yet, truth is, I did not marry and I did not bear children. My brothers have all married and have born children and have or are still raising them. Their lives are very different from mine. To celebrate Thanksgiving means visiting with one or the other, as the whole family no longer gets together on Thanksgiving, and haven't for years. If I had my own family I'm sure it would be the same. So be it. But it brings a certain since of loss to my heart, the loss of experiencing my own family and the intimacy it brings.

Last year we lost our brother, which none of us has fully accepted. His family is feeling the loss keenly as this holiday season approaches. They will be celebrating their first Thanksgiving without him. I can only imagine their sense of loss, the feelings of being cheated from years of relationship that should have been theirs. I know I feel that as well, but this is their father, their husband. The loss is so much deeper. I am so grateful they have a deep love for one another, that both sons chose excellent spouses, and that they will support one another through this difficult time. And I'm so thankful that Roger's impact on their lives was so deep and meaningful. His shortened life was well lived.

There are so many things to be thankful for! I am so very thankful that my parents raised all of us to love the Lord. We have each had our unique journeys in our faith, but faith remains. I am grateful for fabulous family members with whom real and intimate relationships have been established, and hoping that more can be developed. I am grateful for good health and all the benefits that it brings. I am extremely grateful for a career that finally satisfies the hunger in my heart to make a difference in people's lives! That has been a long long long time in coming! But here it is! I'm so very thankful!

I am thankful that the Lord saw fit to find me in California and place me in a healing community. Those years remain intensely precious to me, as I learned so much and received so much healing that I could truly fill a book with all the blessings! Thank you Jesus, for loving me so well!

I am also very much thankful for God's absolute wisdom in creating animals, and in particular, dogs. What amazing companions. They are designed specifically to bring joy and comfort to the heart. I am thankful that almost 8 years ago He brought the perfect dog for me to my house as a starving stray. She has been a wonderful companion. And, since I am gone so much, I found another pup to keep her company. I'm grateful that they are both in good health and that they love me so well.

I am thankful for friends, several friends in particular (some are family members) who have stuck with me through the good and bad, and me with them. There is nothing more healing than having someone still love you even when the ugly, the bent, the difficult side of myself raises it's ugly head and threatens healthy relationships. And I, them, in return. Thank you Jesus for this reflection of Your unconditional love! I am thankful.

Yes, holidays are a bit harder for me than years past. But I am thankful for the lessons to learn and the opportunity to turn sadness into joy! There is so very much that we can all celebrate! Let the celebrations begin!

Who's teaching who? (new ending)

I'm the one with the master's degree. I should be the one who knows what to say and how to say it and it should be clear and meaningful to those who are listening, right? My clients should come to the meetings eager to learn and leave with new knowledge in which to face their day. Right?

I have been assigned to run a psycho-educational group for boundaries. My first two groups had gone smoothly with minimal challenges. Several women were excited that they were learning how to say 'no' when they needed to, or just wanted to. Some women had no idea what a boundary was when they came in, and reported how their life has changed. All thanked me for what they had learned and reported to others that the boundaries class was very helpful. The waiting list grew.

And then came the third group.

It was the very first meeting when I keep the chairs in a classroom format with me standing at the front and my class members facing me. I gave them the forms to sign regarding the rules and the goals for this class, and gave my spiel on how important it is to maintain confidentiality and to really work on their issues.

A woman I'll call Sally is sitting in the third row all the way to the right. She is a middle aged Caucasian woman I have met with frequently and has embraced the fact that she really "messed up", though her choice of words are much more colorful. She really works hard with therapy. She raises her hand and asks the question in her larynx damaged voice from too much smoking "well, what do you do if someone comes into your cubicle and trashes it up?" The others, including myself, assume she is referring to a correctional officer, and several women offer feedback on how to handle the officers on these stressful situations. Sally clarifies "no, I mean when it's another offender".

On that same row a few seats down is another woman whom I'll call Jewel. She is a middle aged African American woman with a whole lot of personality. She sits straight up in her seat, a look of amazement on her face, looks at Sally and states emphatically "you gotta clock 'er!" I'm standing at the front saying something along the line of "well, let's look at this and see if there might be other options", but my voice is tuned out, and a woman in the seat in front of Jewel turns around and states "wow, that must feel pretty good", to which Jewel is saying "sure do!". I'm still trying to redirect the conversation, and a woman on the front row states "I've clocked a lot of people!" to which I reply "and you have spent a whole lot of time in solitary". A voice from the back states "You gotta stand up to them or they'll keep running you over", to which Jewel continues to nod her head emphatically in agreement.

I try to demonstrate wisdom, acknowledging that some people only understand power, and like teaching your child to stand up to bullies on the play ground, sometimes you have to fight. "But you've been fighting all your life, and look where it's gotten you! Perhaps there are other ways to resolve your conflicts!" I continue in this vein, encouraging discussion along this line of thinking, but there are no more comments and looks of "you just don't understand" on each and every face.

I get to the end of my suggestions, and I look at Sally, and I ask her "So, Sally, has this been helpful to you at all?", to which she replies "Yeah, I think I'm gonna clock the B^*&#!"

I hate to admit my unprofessionalism, but I doubled over in laughter! How could I not? We continued to laugh about it the next week, as they got a kick out of me laughing so hard. It actually established an open and honest relationship between us. They were free to say what was really on their minds and knew I could handle it.

Several weeks later Sally reported that this situation came to a head. The particular woman who was harassing her came into her cubicle to attack her. Sally defended herself and the woman retreated. She was asked how this felt, and she said that it didn't feel very good, and that it didn't really resolve anything. Sally continues, in her own unique way, to grapple with her brokenness and is working on changing. She is one of the joys of my job, and I am very proud of her.

Blogging

This is my first entry in bloggerland. I must say that my motivation has been limited, mostly due to the fact that my job requires so much emotional energy that often times I would rather just get 'lost' in a frilly movie or sporting event. And as it is past 10 pm, I will pay for staying up this late to start an entry!

I have been working in criminal rehabilitative work since February of '06, first with boy and girl juvenile delinquents, and then with women prisoners. Quite frankly I have thoroughly enjoyed it! It feels so natural for me to hear the sometimes devastating stories of a person's life and try to help them reconcile what happened to them and to find hope and meaning for their lives. And this population adds a whole new dimension in the fact that often times my clients have done most heinous crimes! How can I sit across from someone who has taken the life of another human being, especially a child, and try to help them find peace?

And yet it is what I do, and somehow it is fulfilling to me to watch someone struggle with their humanity and the evilness they embraced and come to some reconciliation in their souls.

I have learned one very very important boundary that lets me do this work. I am not responsible in the least for what these women chose to do in their past nor in their future. All I am required to do is give my best effort to paint a picture of life and hope and pray that they will choose life! But the choice is entirely theirs! I come home at night and sleep well!