Grandma. I always just referred to her as that without any qualifiers. I said Grandma Sarah whenever I referenced my paternal grandmother. That’s always how it was.
I rely on pictures to remember Grandma’s face. Her other features are more vivid to me. Peppermint. Fresh baked bread. Softness. A guttural cough. Smooth hands and hair. False teeth. A faint smell of cigarettes. A comical sneeze that made me giggle. Crusty toenails. A gentle smile. This is how I remember her.
I do remember some of her facial expressions. Her eyebrows were thin and moved with her voice. The higher she sang, the more her eyebrows raised into her full black hair with hints of gray at the temples. I loved brushing her hair, wishing mine would behave and become as tame and soft as hers.
She had a full chest and soft belly that could hold anyone. I felt fully enveloped and folded in her embrace. Her breathing was a bit shallow, she made noises when exhaling or sighing. She could easily command attention through clearing her throat. Like the time she wanted my Grandpa to move on in his post-sermon remarks. I simple ‘a-hem’ caused him and the Holy Ghost to move on.
I would sometimes catch her using her pinky nail to dig in her nose. Her nails were surprisingly strong and thick. “Soak ‘em in vinegar,” was the trick. Mine just smelled bad afterwards.
Those same fingers would pull out a tooth that she “just wanted to wiggle and see how loose it is.” My tears from these makeshift dental procedures were short-lived because she usually offered a treat as an apology for the lie. My special treat was a fresh roll from Golden Corral tucked safely inside one of her worn leather purses. She always remembered my love for bread and biscuits and seemed to have one available at the right times.
Her laugh was full and hearty, it reminded me of Barney Rubble from The Flintstones. She was funny and would often catch herself being silly or goofy. I remember when she sang the wrong lyrics at church (or was it the wrong note?) and she burst into her laugh. Or the time she interrupted her own song to correct the choir. Ain’t y’all supposed to be singing? To this day, any mention of this phrase will bring laughter to those with this memory.
Her words dripped with Southern grammar and punctuation, dropped letters and occasional swears. She called me ‘Courtnay’ and I loved her for it. Even when she called my name one too many times without a response, I still loved how she said it. One time, she yelled, “Courtnay, get yo ass in here!” in that tone that caused my stomach to drop. My cousins fell quiet, eyes glued to me shakily walking toward her. I anticipated punishment for not answering earlier. Next to talking back, ignoring someone was one of the additional commandments Moses forget to share. She gave me a chance to explain why her calls went unacknowledged and, to my surprise, instructed me to fetch her something without doling out a punishment. I promised to listen harder next time and returned to play while keeping an ear out for her calls.
I loved giving her pedicures, careful not to clip her toenails too low. Something about her diabetes. This started because one time I wrinkled my nose at the state of her ashy, crusty feet and was immediately put to work. “If you don’t like ‘em, make ‘em look pretty.” I used her brown wash tub and a nail file to provide the makeshift pedicure. These grew more elaborate with time as I added nail polish, cuticle clippers, and a pumice stone. I would travel to her house with my pedicure kit, sometimes doing my grandfather’s feet, and Mama’s too. I haven’t done my mother’s feet for some time. We travel to our favorite spa for luxury pedicures when I come home to visit, but it’s not the same.
I can still see her in my mind sitting in her favorite seat on her brick porch looking out over the street and gossiping with her neighbors. I have a weak memory of transporting ‘goods’ between her and Mrs. Strickland, an elderly widow from across the street. My grandma gave me two eggs to deliver to her in exchange for cigarettes. “Don’t drop ‘em, and watch for cars,” my grandma warned. Despite my carefulness, I could hear both women berating me from their respective perches once I reached the street to “watch out!” I triumphantly delivered the eggs for a half carton of Newports. The green and white package was smooth, still covered in plastic and flipped open at the top. I tucked them in my pocket back when including pockets was normal for women/girls’ clothing.
I don’t remember how long it took me to cross the relatively quiet street and walk up the driveway past the rusted, black gate that was usually open. I don’t remember wrestling with giving her the cigarettes or not. Our parents warned us how harmful cigarettes were and would sometimes encourage us to hide her black and brown ‘coin purse’ that held her cancer sticks. There was no way to hide these cigarettes though, especially ones bought with eggs. I was being watched and the idea of potentially receiving two whoopings for destroying the cigarettes was not worth it to me.
I rarely received whoopings from anyone besides Mama. I prided myself on not causing headache and worry in my family unlike some cousins and uncles and aunts I heard about. The ones who ‘strayed’ away from their [re]‘ligion and were out in the ‘world’. My whoopings were usually for talking too much or disobeying a direct order. Low level offenses in the eyes of God. Besides, I sang in church and led the youth in our yearly activities. These had to count for something in the heavenly book, right?
I likely handed her the cigarettes before resuming imaginary play or some competitive game with my brother and two cousins. The four of us spent so many afternoons playing in and around her house with saltines and pickles for sustenance. We were free to roam in every nook and cranny of my grandparent’s house and yard as long as we stayed within the metal fence separating us from occasional visitors and those passing by or waiting for the bus.
I remember our brief time on the bus. “You’re too spoiled, don’t even know how to ride the bus,” she declared one afternoon while babysitting me. I’m the youngest granddaughter and was the last one to stay home with her while the others were in school. “We’re going to ride the bus today,” she said. I was excited and nervous. I had only ever been in a car, two years away from my first plane ride. The bus carried so many people, Black people, and could seemingly take us anywhere we wanted to go. The stop was close, barely a half a block up the street. We boarded and paid our tokens. I chose a window seat to look out on our small city. We didn’t travel far, only to the public library and train depot.
My mother was concerned when I shared our brief adventure. “Where did you need to go, I could have taken you when I got back?”
“That child needs to learn how to ride the bus,” my grandma replied.
That was the end of it. At least from my memory. I wouldn’t ride a public bus again until college.
It’s been 20 years since she passed this past January. I don’t remember much after our last holiday together. We never had a chance to celebrate her birthday again. She was hospitalized, a common occurrence from the time I knew her. We went to see her once or twice this last time she was in there. There were so many tubes, and she would not wake. I remember kissing her and sitting in silence with everyone else before returning home. The idea that she could die did not cross my mind. People her age went to the doctor all the time. “She has an embolism” was all my grandpa told us. All we knew to do was pray.
It honestly came as a shock when my parents told us she died.
My brother and I had just gotten food, McDonalds I think, and sat down to eat at the breakfast nook. We lived much further than my grandparents now in a new development where no one on our street looked like us. Mama prayed for this house, but I rarely remember Grandma coming to visit. “There’s too many stairs,” she would say. Not to mention we barely knew our neighbors, none of which visited us to offer their condolences after her passing.
My parents came up the stairs from our two-car garage. My mom’s eyes were reddish, but her face was dry. Her head was down, and she had her hands in her pocket. I remember my dad sitting down first, a bit hesitant. She put her elbows on the table and would not meet our gaze. We asked how grandma was doing and if we could go see her later. After a brief pause my dad spoke softly, gently, “Your grandmother passed…”
Everything else was a blur. I could feel hot tears falling down my face as I choked on my nuggets gasping for air. Then I heard a terrifying scream from my brother. “No!” he shouted, standing and crying profusely. He pushed away from the table screaming as if her body was in front of us. He bolted toward the front door, his body moving in a jerky fashion. Daddy bounded after him, finally catching up with him in the street and pulling him into an embrace. Mama patted my back firmly and kept telling me to breathe. I never thought my tears would stop flowing.
She was gone. The finality of it all seemed to be too much.
Mama managed to withhold tears throughout our intense grieving period and somehow got all of us to cuddle together in their king-sized bed. Mama comforted us when she had just lost her mother, her best friend. She hasn’t been the same since that day. Something shifted in her—perhaps it happens to everyone.
It’s taken me over 20 years to finally see Mama as a motherless woman who mothered us through marital infidelity, teen pregnancy, grandparent alienation and neglect, codependent siblings struggling with addiction, and an aging father. It’s imperfect and frustrating at times, but I believe she is doing her best.
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