Thanks for your comments.
I really hadn’t noticed how often ‘She’ was starting sentences. Thank you for pointing that one out.
Non-fiction / Grandma's Boy
I saw my Grandma today.
Shaking and confused – 93 years old – still full of piss and vinegar.
She’s got 200 lbs of ass rested in a wheelchair she didn’t really need, but for laziness and pity.
Her shoulders are tiny in comparison, and her hair is a wild mess atop them.
Her hands – waxy skin, taut at bony knuckles, hanging loose and tattered in between – the hands of a starving man.
She still has the same face. That thoroughly confusing mixture of influence. Regret mixed with serenity and love mixed with contempt for all others. I remember that face, slightly fuller, beaming down in relief when I regained consciousness, having spattered my 5 year-old skull on her sidewalk… after jumping from her prized peach tree in my efforts to fly like Superman did on TV.
She was born in 1912. There was a brushfire blaze in the small Ontario town when it happened. She tells me how the windows had melted, although she was only moments past birth and certainly unlikely to remember such details.
She had a brother and a father who died in a war. They were both my great-grandfathers – on different sides - by a strange twist of marriage and, of course, because she only took me as her own. She took care of me as a child – primordial daycare – teaching me to read and write, tend a garden and behave myself during her soap operas… until I was old enough to go to school.
She picked fruit during the Great Depression and badly broke her collarbone as a girl. She still talks about it today.
She blames my dead Grandfather for 7 kids and a hard life she says she never deserved to suffer through. I remember her as the one who started most of the fights, nagging and harrassing him until he was gone, so much dust to sweep off into a corner.
She has lost 3 brothers, 2 sisters her husband and, long ago, her parents. She is fond of describing herself as the last of her kind.
So there she sits in that wheelchair that she put herself in, finally going grey after 90 years brunette. She spends her days reliving the now-distant past, hating people long gone and complaining that the nurses are stealing from her room. She is convinced that the woman across the hall is running a brothel in the Rec Room. As such, she refuses to go near it. She has trouble remembering names and constantly calls my wife “girl”. She thinks my brother-in-law is me with a different hat on. She always knows my voice when I call her monthly on the phone.
This is what has become of my Grandmother. This is what she has become. And she still rests in my heart as no other. It breaks my heart to see her, but I go, every week. To sit and talk and listen to her stories and hold her cold and waxy hand. She is still my Grandma and I love her.
AR Howerton Ó2006
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Orkneygirl reviewed Version 1 -
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This is a very well written meditation, filled with poignancy, humor and love for a guy’s grandma. Up until yesterday, I wouldn’t have been able to relate to it very well, although I am touched by it regardless.
The physical description of the narrator’s grandma is vivid. I have had neighbors who resemble her and I have met women with her personality as recorded.
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TheMadViolin reviewed Version 1 -
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Very intriguing piece.
There were a couple of speed-bumps along the way where I had to reread sentences to make sure I was hearing it in the way you intended (Ex: The paragraph that starts with ‘She still has the same face’). I would just reread it and iron out a couple of those sentences.
That being said, you have very effective descriptions – a definite flair in word choice that makes me think you have a poetic side. They are the type of descriptions that I can read and find interesting.
I’m not sure the ending was as effective as you may like. Your descriptions painted a woman in a darker, more negative light. I thought it was difficult to find sympathy with the woman you portrayed. If possible, I would suggest also presenting the side of her that makes you love her – why does it break your heart to see her?
Overall, great writing, just iron out a few wrinkles (I’m sure I sound much more critical in this review than my intentions).
Caroline24 reviewed Version 1 -
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This is another great example of one of your intimate snapsnots of life that you portray so well. Many of us share these types of mixed emotions – utter disdain and, at the same time, unconditional love – for certain family members, and it comforts us to no end to have someone put them into words for us. You manage to reveal these fine nuances of the human psyche with such skill and apparent ease.
I have a couple of suggestions and comments regarding what others have said.
I don’t mind the sentence about the hands. I got it instantly.
“As such,” was used correctly and, anyway, because of the personal nature of the piece, you can be more informal in your style.
I had a problem with the word “rested.” When I read this I wondered if this is how she how she might say it. If this is the case, put it in quotations.
Also, “That…mixture of influence.” shouldn’t (in my view) be cut off here. You’re talking about a mixture, so what follows should be in the same sentence.
Your use of “she” is fine.
You are an intersting and very talented writer.
JeanJefferies reviewed Version 1 -
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great description of her to start off, makes me wish i had an od person in my book like her so i could bite off it.
wow you are abetter man than me i have a comparible grandmother and i consider her wicked and i do pray she burns in purgatory for all the misery she has spread. I think a nice rule to teach others may be, you dont have to love or care about someone because they are family, it is a small nucleus. Do what is best for mankind. Jeff dahmer and ted bundy had family and they all admit that deep inside they knew his evil. Nice tale and your a good man/woman
Stoogester reviewed Version 1 -
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‘still full of piss and vinegar’ – I was totally hooked from here. I am glad to have read this. This is beautiful in its brutal honesty, is touching in the empathy you convey, is vivid in the picture you depict so well – created a real person instantly with ‘the hands of a starving man.’ So refreshing to read non-fiction that still creates a clever, emotional story. I can’t fault it.
Isobel_Walkins reviewed Version 1 -
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“Her hands – waxy skin, taut at bony knuckles, hanging loose and tattered in between – the hands of a starving man.”- I had to read this sentence three times before understanding it. There is wonderful imagery here, but the structure needs work.
Also, you begin five consecutive sentences with “she”, it would be more interesting to start the paragraphs differently.
I found the story touching and familiar. It is easy to empathize with the grandmother and writer. The end gave me chills.
SilentStrife reviewed Version 1 -
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Wow, that was a really great read. The contempt at the beginning almost turned my off, but as I kept reading the sheer fact that you know this history as shedoes show the care you have for her. Although I still feel the contempt never really goes away, I’m comforted by the end of the piece. Believe me, I know what it is like to have contempt for a loved one because of somethign tey can’t control. But family is family eh?
LeahD reviewed Version 1 -
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This is a well-realized snap-shot of a not very lovable old lady. Have you considered writing more about her life, the way she grew up, the real sufferings she endured (not just the ones she imagines), more about the other people who were close to her? I’ve often thought about using the lives of my parents as at least taking off places for fiction -- they seem to have had much more interesting lives than I -- at least more challenging.
You’re missing a few commas, as here:
“She has lost 3 brothers, 2 sisters[,] her husband and. . . .”
“As such, she refuses to go near it.”
Not really the right way to use “as such”—kind of a crutch of a phrase in any case. This is really a “therefore.” The “as such” should refer to the subject of the clause that follows it. You might say, “She’s convinced the woman across the hall is running a brothel in the rec room; as such, it is an unfit place for her to visit.” I still don’t care for the phrase, though.
For a real “story” you’d need to pick a critical event of her life, and dramatize it—a memory, or something that’s happening in her rather sad present. That might be interesting to attempt.
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