Grandma

My grandfather was a cruel, violent, bad-tempered, unpredictable, near-genius of a man who has left his mark on his children.  Six out of seven of them have had failed marriages; at least three have suffered from mental illness; four or five have struggled with (and perhaps still struggle with) substance abuse and other addictions.  

At the time of his death, he and my grandmother were sort of separated – he lived upstairs in their one-family house and she and the children still at home lived downstairs.  I remember my aunts being terrified that he would come storming down during one of his rages.  To my knowledge he never did.

My grandmother felt trapped.  She had several young children, no high school diploma and no marketable skills that she could see.  She continued to live in her husband’s home in part because she had no where else to go but also because of a binding tie.  She continued to be as much of a wife to him as she could be:  she brought him meals, gave him medicine, cared for him when he was ill.  She was afraid of him, felt guilt for not being able to protect her children better, and still showed him compassion.  

She has told me that when he died, her primary emotion was relief.  She has had nightmares about him coming back from the grave to yell at her for changing things in the house.   Yet, she also feels some regret for not recognizing his mental illness and for not trying harder to get him help.  Part of that, I suppose is unnecessary guilt on her part and a kind of coulda-shoulda-woulda feeling that if only she had done xyz differently, he would have been better.  Maybe that’s a part of battered wife syndrome – I don’t know.  But she also just has a way of thinking better of people than they deserve.  Having often been the recipient of her undeserved favor, I try not to judge her too harshly for this “flaw.”  

For a few minutes a few days ago I could not remember my own telephone number yet the number that has not rung at my grandmother’s house in about twenty years came to me easily and unbidden.   My grandma turned seventy-nine this year. 

I’m not sure what else to say about all this.  It wanted to come out.  I feel like it’s unfinished though I’m sure I’ve said it before.  I’m just not sure this is anything but the beginning of the story.  I don’t know how it ends.