Recently, I have been making an effort to stay in touch with my 91-year-old grand cousin. He was my grandmother's favorite cousin, Larry. He has been married for about 70 years to his wife, and they are retired, living out west. I have enjoyed our conversations because he has told me so much about our family history. Tonight, he told me that when my grandma was younger, my great-grandfather used to yell at her.
"I think he was just afraid he was going to lose her," he informed me.
When we got off the phone, I burst into tears. I know that no one is perfect, but my grandma came pretty close. She was kind and she was sweet and she was always thinking about everyone but herself. I couldn't stand the thought of someone being mean to her, no matter what the reason. I then began to think about the tantrums I used to throw as a kid and how ungrateful and bratty I could be. I pondered on something that we don't realize until we are older: the adults in our lives had whole lives before we got here. My grandma, who got on me for not wearing dresses and insisted that I press my hair, loved me and took care of me and also had a dad who could sometimes be mean to her. She liked to dance and play the guitar when she was younger. She sang with her friends in a jazz band. She was more than just the old lady that got on me for sitting with my legs open in skirts. She was a whole person. How did her life influence the kind of life that she tried to point me in the direction of having?
If nothing else, big questions like this are signs of getting older. When my niece and nephew become teens, and I am grounding them and putting them on punishment for being obnoxious, I wonder if they will be wise enough to know that I am not just their cruel aunty. I was a whole person before they got here that like chopped and screwed love songs and books. Perhaps they will take this into account when they are mature enough to create a full picture of me.
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