A Tale of Two Grandmothers

GiaB writing prompt #19 — family

My mom was from Wales, my dad from the United States. Since my parents chose to make their life in the U.S., we saw my dad’s family much more often than my mom’s.

My dad’s mother was Grandma, my mom’s mother was Nana.

Grandma had raised ten children, six boys and four girls. Life at their house was loud and a bit chaotic. No matter what was going on around her, Grandma took it all in stride.

My mom tells of coming over to America to marry my dad at just 18, turning 19 on their wedding day. Two of my dad’s younger brothers, in high school at the time, were chasing each other around the house with knives. Mom, who never had brothers, was horrified.

Grandma didn’t leave her chair or raise her voice.

“Farrell, Harold — quit acting the fool.”

They did.

Grandma was a calming presence. Unconditional love. Spending the night with her was the best treat. You would wake up to the smell of bacon. Before I started school, I often skipped breakfast. But not at Grandma’s. Everything tasted so good. We sat around the table, in her stainless-steel-before-it-was-cool kitchen, and talk and laugh and enjoy the start of the day. She was one of my favorite people.

But then there was my Nana. She would come to visit on a ship, being afraid to fly. It didn’t take long until we wished she was back on that ship, headed anywhere but our house.

Nana was controlling and bad-tempered. She found fault with much of what my mother did. Looking at her as an adult I understand it a bit. When she was young she had an affair with the rich son of the family for which she was the maid. She had a daughter. This was the 1930's. The parents sent their son away and he never saw my Nana again or my aunt, though his family paid child support until she was 18. The shame and the fear had to be paralyzing. The walls she put up to get through it, high.

She married my Grandsha (grandfather) when my aunt was young. I think about four. He accepted her as his own. They had two more daughters, the first my mom. Where Nana never found much joy in anything, my Grandsha found joy in most things. He loved completely, while no one was ever good enough for Nana.

They never traveled to the U.S. together. Maybe because they couldn’t afford money for both to travel at one time, maybe because he could not afford the time off work needed for a trans-Atlantic cruise. He only came once, when I was quite young, but pictures and home movies of that time showed him delighting in everything, especially his grandchildren.

But Nana disrupted the household. I remember her getting angry and telling me that she was going to go home and take all my pictures down. I was nine. My crime? Defending my mom from her criticism.

My grandmothers taught me valuable lessons. Grandma taught me to be calm in a storm. There really isn’t much that should raise your anxiety or your ire. She also taught me that you love family purely, even when they do dumb things.

Nana taught me misery is a choice. I don’t believe she had a happy life. I know she didn’t earn the devotion of her grandchildren. That is sad. We wanted to love her.

She also taught me that negative criticism hurts the souls of the people around you. I am critical by nature. This in itself is not a bad thing. It means I can survey a situation and make a judgment.

When it comes to people, though, I try to apply it lovingly, Being critical allows you to see the bad and the good. I choose to focus on the good in people. Not meaningless praise, but words they can count on as truth.

One of my grandmothers chose to deal with whatever came her way and make the best of it. The other allowed life to make her bitter.

My grandmothers made me a better person, one for positive reasons and one for negative. I wish I had the depth of loving feelings for Nana that I have for Grandma. I don’t.

How we approach life and treat people is our choice. Often this choice impacts the world for generations.

Thanks to Victor Sarkin and Genius in a Bottle for another prompt that made me think and reminisce and put it to paper. I challenge Tina L. Smith, Gayle Kurtzer-Meyers, Kristie Darling, Stephen Dalton, Randy Shingler, Myriam Ben Salem🦋, Sujani Hansanali, and Tracy Stengel to take this prompt. But you know my rule — only if you want to!

Kim McKinney was blessed with a large and vibrant family, and as a lover of life’s stories, she has watched them all closely. She has taken away lessons good and bad. Both are valuable, though she would prefer they had all been good.