Damn, child!

“Damn child, are you planning on pulling all my hair out?” my faded Lauren Bacall look-alike Grandma snarled as I pin-curled her hair while we watched Little House on the Prairie. I laughed and continued to squirt gel into my hands and roll up her silver hair into little circles secured by bobby-pins. This was our time. Barbara Ann Cleary, ornery old woman and my grandmother and caretaker, was and continues to be the only woman on the earth who understands me. She had helped raise me since I was three months old and still, a year after her death, teaches me daily how to be a strong woman.
Every morning at sun-up she dressed her king size bed with sheets of silk and spread many a quilt atop the massive mattress. Preparing for my arrival, she stood frying bacon at the stovetop, cursing when stray grease splattered her arm. When finished mixing my bacon and eggs together, she would ease herself down into her teal green lazy-boy, which sat in the corner of the den. The room was dark and filled with the voices of the Today show. By 8:30 in the morning, I would be dropped off by my mom and so excited to finally be able to run into the old brick house on East 55th street.
“Hey Grandma!” I would yell as I locked the old plexi-glass door. She would then greet me with a hot breakfast and my favorite plastic Barbie cup filled with cold pulp free orange juice. “I don’t like that stuff floating in my drink” she would grumble knowing that’s what she bought, but more to just state her opinion at every opportunity.
“Hey Darling, anything interesting happen since yesterday? Your mother is at work I assume?, she would ask casually, a thin Silver Eve cigarette dangling from her lips as she lit it with her red lighter. She had them everywhere in every color….so many lighters, like part of the décor. She was so afraid not to have a way to light “the damn thing” as she put it.
“Yea…she wasn’t in a good mood, another fight with my dad last night. It was so stupid Grandma, I just couldn’t understand a word problem and so I asked Papa for help. When I didn’t understand he called me stupid and of course I yelled at him and the problem escalated from there.” I said with a tearful voice.
“Baby, why do you let a man tell you what you are worth? You are one of the brightest children I know. I see a future for you with a hell of a lot more success than your father could imagine. He never could understand women; I wonder why this is only his second failed marriage,” she would add with a sarcastic tone as she exhaled the smoke from her lungs. She would take a breath and readjust herself in her seat and take a sip of home-made sweet tea from her Mason jar glass, and then she would start in on her stories for the lesson of the day, “I remember when I met my first husband, Julian Silver. Let me tell you right now of what a worthless piece of shit he was, pardon my language. He was a manipulative son of a bitch, the kind that sneaks into a woman’s head when she’s not looking. Have to be careful of those types baby. A true momma’s boy, honey that man wouldn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground unless his mother pointed it out to him. I should have known he would think he could order me around and I would bend to his will. He had forgotten he married a southern woman,” and she would pause and tell me to go get her blue fuzzy slippers in the back bedroom because her feet were almost ‘frozen to bits’.
“Grandma really? I couldn’t imagine a man trying to tell YOU what to do. What happened next?” I would ask with a smile as I moved to the floor to take out my art supplies.
“Well I foolishly married the bastard in the summer of 1952. I was such a stupid girl Olivia, I was in my last year of nursing school and I dropped out to marry this Humpty-Dumpty look-a-like. But he did have that movie star appeal; he had been a radio announcer in Savannah so he seemed like a big damn deal. In my stupidity I believed every vile word that man said. Let that be your first lesson. Whatever you do, never believe a man…ever. Mark my words you will regret it until you are six feet under. So we eloped and I got pregnant right away with your Aunt Diane and then a few years later your Aunt Karen. Julian was an evil man, Olivia. He beat me and brought me to my breaking point and even took me against my will, but we won’t head down that road today.” Grandma would then unfold her skinny legs from underneath herself, crush out the last of the cigarette, and move to the comfort of the couch where she would rest her eyes. I would never be convinced she was truly asleep because she always kept one eye half open. If I dared to deviate from her regular shows such as: M*A*S*H, Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, China Beach, Oprah, or Dr. Phil, she would immediately open her eyes and demand that I change it back so she `could watch Charles Ingles chastise Laura for the ten millionth time. “We are not watching that other crap; hand me that blue pillow behind you,” she muttered as she put the floppy navy blue pillow under her chin. Eventually, I learned to love those old shows and would relish the chance to curl up on the couch and watch the love between Alonzo and Laura.
Lunch would be around noon, and Grandma and I would start listing items in the fridge that we could whip up. Sometimes it was a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich loaded with salt and pepper and other times it was freshly made shrimp salad. She would never feed me anything that was prepared less than perfectly. She taught my taste-buds the art of enjoying fine cuisine. Even when I was really young, Grandma had never fed me Gerber baby food; it was always grown up food. I tasted everything growing up as she juggled both me on her hip, and the black cast iron skillet she used to fry chicken.
“Babygirl let me finish telling you about my hideous journey with Julian. The physical abuse was enough to bring me to my knees and I had a rude-ass awakening when I realized I was much better than him. So I didn’t think twice and I divorced him. I took the kids and left. Of course his mother had a hissy fit, but did I care? Not one damn bit. Olivia, I realized then that I would always be independent and never allow a man to rule me. I dropped my life for him and I would have been the finest nurse any hospital had ever seen. Do not let that puny man, we are now talking about your father sweety, diminish you. I built you Olivia, and I’ll be damned if I see him destroy you as Julian took my life from me. Screw his ass; since you were born he never appreciated you or your mother. It’s no wonder his other children want nothing to do with him. He has no idea how to handle women. And we both know math is not your strong suit, but honey he has no right to make you feel bad…he flunked the third grade. Third damn grade! What kind of moron flunks third grade? Anyways it’s not your fault. Those damn Greeks are to blame for adding letters to simple equations.” As I finished my sandwich and bottled Coca-Cola, I watched her search for her one of many cigarette cases and curse as she looked high and low. “Damn it, Olivia come help me find my lighter.” she would say. After 30 minutes of searching the entire downstairs and a few choice words later, it would always be found on her fire-engine red velvet stool, hidden by a towering stack of out dated magazines and National Enquirers.
After four o’clock the day would wind down, and we would sit eating carrots and ranch dressing while Oprah would surprise her audience with new cars or go to Africa and start a new school. Our dinner would always be home-cooked and from scratch. At 75 Grandma would still make dinner consisting of a large salad with beets and bacon bits and a hot plate of southern style entrees such as: cube steak with mashed potatoes, corn, and peas, or shrimp scampi and a baked potato, baked ham, macaroni and cheese, red rice, and potato salad. The presence of Dr. Phil would pop up on the television at five, and Grandma and I would give our opinions about the problem. If the segment was about a young teen who had been having problems with drugs, alcohol, or had been arrested, grandma would take a long drag of her Silver Eve and state, “What they really need to do is throw these misfits into a prison cell with some of the murdering sons of bitches in this country and just scare the living hell out of them…trust me after that experience, meth would be the least of their problems.” I would smile and agree with her as always. Around quarter to six my mother would come pick me up and I would say goodbye to my grandmother, always excited to see her the next day. With a hug and a kiss on the cheek I would walk out the door and wave goodbye. Back then it would have never occurred to me that one day I would never have that luxury of having her solve my problems with a funny story embellished by a long string of cuss words.
As I sit here and type this, I remember those days of always running into my grandma’s arms when I was troubled. December 21st will mark the one year anniversary of her death, and I now am brought back to the reality that I will have to face my problems alone; her aged, wrinkle covered hand will not be there to hold mine. She is responsible for my being the woman that I am today. I am confident, independent, easy-going, able to laugh at jokes and at myself, and will always be able to stand up for myself. She taught me that the only person who can bring me down is myself and that I can only count on myself to push through the hard times. I will never rely on a man for the tough ass decisions which require sweat and tears. I will always believe in myself. I will always appreciate the opportunities given to me. And I will always appreciate the value of a loving mother. Thank you Grandma, I love you.