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auntbijouLast night, I got an email from my dad. In it was a picture of his mother. Now, this is significant because the only picture I've ever seen of my father's mother where her face was clear was taken when he was a baby. She was sitting in sunshine, with Dad in her lap, both of them squinting into the sun, her face good-natured and happy. Because of the brightness of the photo, and because her face is all squinched up, it's sort of hard to make out what she looks like.
In this photo, she's thin, almost to the point of emaciation, though she's smiling, and you can see determination gleaming out of her face. It was taken in a sanatorium in McGee, Mississippi back in the late 1920's, early 1930's, and when I read that in Dad's letter, I remembered, oh yeah, she had tuberculosis, or so they thought. Dad said he got to see her once, and he had to wear a mask and wasn't allowed to touch her, nor she allowed to touch him. Not long after the picture was taken, she was released to her parents' home to die, and Dad got to see her again, but he had to sit outside her room to talk to her.
I say they thought she had tuberculosis, because they had diagnosed it as "tuberculosis of the throat." Dad remembers with great detail her symptoms and what she went through. This is significant, because seven years ago, my dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, the same cancer that took Ann Richard's life last year. Every symptom he had, he would look at my mother and me and say, "My mother went through this exact same thing."
It's been enlightening. I've been encouraging my father to tell me what he can about her. I never knew any of my grandparents. My mother's father died when she was 3 months old, and he was 58. Her mother died just after World War II of a heart attack. My father's mother died in the early thirties, as you see. And his dad died just after I was born. The closest thing I had to grandparents were my great aunts and great uncles, mostly on my mother's side, who confused me greatly by teaching me to speak French when I was very small, and ensuring I would have a funny accent for most of my elementary years. That's okay, most of the other kids had funny accents, too, it's just... theirs was because they spoke Spanish.
Anyhow, I've grown up seeing photos of my grandfathers, but very few of my grandmothers. So I have a great curiosity about them. It was when I saw a photo of my mother's mother that I finally saw eyes shaped like my own. And felt like I belonged in this family. The Blonde Sister (formerly known as the Beautiful Sister) had me convinced that I had been left on the back doorstep by a black cat with a bad temper. Anyway, it solved a lot of mysteries for me, seeing that picture of that particular grandmother, why Great Aunt Evil hated me so much and singled me out for so much of her venom... because I look just like my grandmother, whom she hated with a passion.
Seeing this new photo of my father's mother, I see now why my mouth crooks to the left when I smile. Because hers did. And where my smirk comes from. From her. And I finally know who's hands I have. I have her hands. Gosh, she had little hands!
It's nice to finally know some of these things. It feels a little bit more like belonging.
In this photo, she's thin, almost to the point of emaciation, though she's smiling, and you can see determination gleaming out of her face. It was taken in a sanatorium in McGee, Mississippi back in the late 1920's, early 1930's, and when I read that in Dad's letter, I remembered, oh yeah, she had tuberculosis, or so they thought. Dad said he got to see her once, and he had to wear a mask and wasn't allowed to touch her, nor she allowed to touch him. Not long after the picture was taken, she was released to her parents' home to die, and Dad got to see her again, but he had to sit outside her room to talk to her.
I say they thought she had tuberculosis, because they had diagnosed it as "tuberculosis of the throat." Dad remembers with great detail her symptoms and what she went through. This is significant, because seven years ago, my dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, the same cancer that took Ann Richard's life last year. Every symptom he had, he would look at my mother and me and say, "My mother went through this exact same thing."
It's been enlightening. I've been encouraging my father to tell me what he can about her. I never knew any of my grandparents. My mother's father died when she was 3 months old, and he was 58. Her mother died just after World War II of a heart attack. My father's mother died in the early thirties, as you see. And his dad died just after I was born. The closest thing I had to grandparents were my great aunts and great uncles, mostly on my mother's side, who confused me greatly by teaching me to speak French when I was very small, and ensuring I would have a funny accent for most of my elementary years. That's okay, most of the other kids had funny accents, too, it's just... theirs was because they spoke Spanish.
Anyhow, I've grown up seeing photos of my grandfathers, but very few of my grandmothers. So I have a great curiosity about them. It was when I saw a photo of my mother's mother that I finally saw eyes shaped like my own. And felt like I belonged in this family. The Blonde Sister (formerly known as the Beautiful Sister) had me convinced that I had been left on the back doorstep by a black cat with a bad temper. Anyway, it solved a lot of mysteries for me, seeing that picture of that particular grandmother, why Great Aunt Evil hated me so much and singled me out for so much of her venom... because I look just like my grandmother, whom she hated with a passion.
Seeing this new photo of my father's mother, I see now why my mouth crooks to the left when I smile. Because hers did. And where my smirk comes from. From her. And I finally know who's hands I have. I have her hands. Gosh, she had little hands!
It's nice to finally know some of these things. It feels a little bit more like belonging.
