Your Past May Not Be What You Thought It Was

My heart is so heavy right now. It's no secret that I used to spend my entire summer vacations as a kid at my grandparents'. They lived on 80 acres of pure farmland. I was spoiled to a degree, for sure, but I was always expected to "stay in line". That meant that I was to help with dishes, mowing, making beds, etc. It's what EVERY kid my age did back then. We didn't know entitlement. We knew DISCIPLINE. As much as you wouldn't think it would be a good time, it sure was, for the most part. I was so soooo blessed to have been able to do that. My grandfather died when I was 18 in 1990. It was the first real close death I experienced and since then, I've had a number of deaths I've had to deal with. Probably one of the most impactful death I had to experience was 8 years ago. That was my grandmother. She was 89. When she was in ICU (this is another long story from hell), I never left her side unless I had to eat or get sleep. I held her hand (she was non-responsive) and I talked to her and recited so many memories I had. My grandma got my ears pierced when I was maybe 4th grade. We always went to this one bakery (it was the best) for bread. We would frequent the Ben Franklin Dime Store and go to lunch after. One summer, my grandma gave me the money from her garage sale so I could buy my very first 10 speed bike. That was a HUGE deal as a kid back in the 80s.



I rode tractors with my grandfather, rode on hay wagons when it was time to bale hay...and perhaps my favorite was to walk the woods at the end of the 80 acres to check fences (cattle used to go into the woods). Every Sunday, my grandma, grandpa, and I would take a drive somewhere. It could be 10 miles down the road or 45 minutes down the rode...we always went somewhere. Usually, that "somewhere" had an ice cream joint like Dairy Queen. Of COURSE, my grandpa insisted on stopping. He was always great like that! Summer nights were filled with the sounds of Detroit Tigers baseball games on TV with the TV turned out towards the screened in porch. I'd hear the baseball game and the bug zapper simultaneously. It really didn't get any better than that.

It was no wonder that I had this overwhelming need to make sure I got everything out of that house when my grandma died. I had to have the cuckcoo clock that always ticked 24 hours a day (It was my great-great aunt's). I had to have ALL the old pictures. I took her Mix Master, the Blue Ridge dishes, her jewelry, the afghan that her neighbor made before I was born (but always used it as a kid). I had to have the stupid knick knacks she had, her wedding pictures, the penny kettle on top of the refrigerator, the old lock box (which turned out to be a gold mine of original civil war papers of my great-great grandfather). If it reminded me of my childhood, I took it. In hindsight, I wish I would've taken more. I hold hard and fast to the things I love the most.

Then tonight. My parents went out of town to a bed and breakfast for Thanksgiving. They've done this for the past few years despite my protests. It hurts to see them leave. But tonight. Tonight, my husband told me he talked with my mother early Thursday morning. My husband told me she told my mother we invited my uncle over for dinner (he has late-onset schizophrenia and is highly odd, but doing much better since he has started working a job). Apparently, my mother was happy we were doing that. But then...my mother told him WHY she leaves. Supposedly, she didn't have a great childhood. Apparently, my grandmother could be very mean and I "have no idea what went on". This was extremely overwhelming to hear. I wanted to bawl my eyes out. I didn't know what to feel. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to even react. My grandmother was mean? I don't know that I've seen my grandmother exactly "mean" when I lived there all summer. My grandma would sometimes tease me about my weight in a "joking" way. She would even say to me (and in a more negative tone), "You look just like your dad". That one probably impacted me the most. My biological dad was a drunken dead-beat. I knew him since I was maybe 10, but he was mostly in and out of my life. Being told I look just like him sent me the message that it wasn't a good thing so I truly felt shitty. Still, it wasn't enough for me to hate my grandma...it wasn't enough for me to not be at her side in ICU (my mother wasn't...but I think that was mostly because she couldn't emotionally handle it). It wasn't enough for me to leave her own cherished possessions inside a house being sold. It wasn't enough for me to not love her. ...and I did....and I did hard.

I am not sure how to handle this. I am so sad and I am scared that knowing may tarnish the way I feel about my grandparents. It would change EVERYTHING that I loved dearly. I'd have to take them off my lock screen and background. Maybe I wouldn't feel like I would have to if I actually knew what all of this meant. But what if id DID mean that?? I'm sad. I am soooo sad over this. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it IS something. Maybe.