Yea, so the tribute is a bit late, so sue me. The “it’s the thought that counts” excuse works perfectly here, so mum!
My Grams and I didn’t have a chance in hell, which is a rather dangerous analogy to be using in the presence of Death. Given the irreparable damage that TV did me the instant I set my eyes on it, only the direct intervention of God (and maybe a war) would have driven us together by some novel worthy circumstances.
I’m saying, all those retarding TV shows with their equally retarding worm like ideas just wriggled their way into my eager mind and infested it, leukemia style. I’m at present a lost cause. Nothing can be done to deliver me from that fantastic Utopia which all TV addicts know and revere so.
My idea of a Gram was (and is) so warped that Grams the country over would chuckle themselves dead (there I go again with the dangerous analogies) if they knew even half of my opinions on what Grams ought to be.
We’d have the extension on the house where the Gram would put up with a nurse if we were that rich. And she’d have some old cat called Tonks or Mr. Wilks which we would secretly feed chocolate to see whether it would really die. And she’d have this old nobly walking stick that would be the sole inspiration of all our assertions and private beliefs that Grams was a spirit from another life watching over the youth and we were her keepers. Then there’d be the odd jobbing, the scrub my back and fetch my purse and clean my teeth to be rewarded with old five hundred notes that she’d still think valuable. And we’d probably (most likely) secretly wish her dead at times. Like when we’d have to keep the volume down to like three, coz any louder reminded her of the war. She’d also definitely have the story telling bit down pat, old boring shit that we’d sit down for and listen to with affected tedium when deep down inside we really loved her stories and would probably say so at her funeral in some lame poem we (the grandkids) would come up with.
Fuck. I am truly messed.
Not only do I get none of that (we’re talking Zippo here), I have absolutely no living memory of my Grams. There’re pictures somewhere in a family album to suggest otherwise but then again, I was six-ish and my immediate concern was probably quickly getting off the lap of the really old person I was being made to sit on and take pictures with. And maybe getting back to some lollipop licking (shut up Wayne) and some TV watching and being cute for all the stupid dumb adults to swoon over me.
I guess some shit just happens for a reason. I can’t even speak my mother tongue, so unless I hoped that somehow my Grams would settle for strained conversation in sign language, there wasn’t going to be much of a connection between us.
I’ve heard stories about her though. Great woman, aside form the fact that she is my father’s mother of course, she was also viciously cold-ish. Cold, in that attractive nose in air, cold. Cold, like that guy in Pride and Prejudice, cold. No, it is not the way I choose to look at it, that’s the way it was. Anyway, I have this thing for cold, unaffected people, so I just might have worshipped the ground she walked on if we’d gotten chummy. I’d give my little finger (being realistic) to see her in action. Being cold and aloof and detached and all. Maybe a little meanness here and there and surely I should die happy.
My Grams was also kind-ish. I keep adding the ish coz my information is entirely generated from hearsay. So Grams, wherever you are (and I’m crossing my fingers it’s some place good), direct not your curses from beyond at me.
Anyway, yea. She got called this month, called in that over hopeful way people say someone got called in the hopes that by saying that God called someone it will magically be so. We can be over hopeful sometimes, can’t we? Like if Kony got called.
Not to say that I think she didn’t get called. (God! shouted TV, how many times have I told you not to correct yourself before someone points out your mistake! Damn it, you try to brainwash a kid right and somewhere along the line they start getting these ideas. Moral value and integrity. What the fuck is that!)
Anyway, I sat at her funeral staring at my heritably heartless family, not one tear, not even a whimper of threatening spillage. Blank empty faces, masks of complete control and commemorating detachment behind which lay dams spilling over with grief and heart break. Or so I like to hope.
Then there was the personal torment. The little nagging voice of my devil conscience. Parading guilt and singing shame at me. I let a freaking fly crawl over me the entire service in the hopes that it might be my Grams in the fleeting moment of her passing from this world to the next; trying to get to know the grand daughter she never had a chance with.
I know, I SUCK.
I’ll probably burn in hell. I think my Grams’ spirit manifested itself in a freaking fly!
I guess what matters is I loved the woman. No, that’s not guilt talking even though I stared for hours on end at her picture waiting for some wail of a voice to rise from nowhere and in my mother tongue tell me that everything was okay and I need not feel too bad.
But see what TV has done to me!
Needless to say, no voice came. I do know, in that way those idiots who are in love “know” they’re going to be together forever, that my Grams loved me. At least as much as my character will allow for the receipt of said affection.
Plus she had a smashing name too. I mean in her day and age and she got away with Antonia. That is what I call old school class my friends.
Okay, I’ve never called it old school class but if I was at pains to call it something old school class would definitely be first choice.
