Lies!

You know that House of Style model-host? Molly Sims? I think she went to my high school. There’s a photo of her in the new seventeen from when she was 17 and she looks so unbelievably familiar. If anyone knows anything about her, like if she’s from Texas for example, let me know. It’s really eerie. Plus, in that photo? She so has Texas hair.

I can’t judge the poor girl, I mean, who didn’t? Except mine was always pretty tame and on the subdued side. (This was not due to a lack of trying, mind you.)

In junior high I cursed the clouds because of my lame hair. It wouldn’t do anything. Even after countless trips to the girls’ bathroom with my Clairol cordless curling iron, still, nada. My bangs always fell a little flat. But that was when I was trying to do that bi-level thing, where you curl the top section up, tease it, and curl the bottom under. Once I got the curl-under-feather-up thing going, it would’ve taken high water to knock those puppies loose.

They were at least a solid three inches above my forehead. How do I explain that to my daughter one day? Mommy liked to play with hot rollers dear. Do as I say, not as I did.

Thankfully the one-length trend took hold by late high school; you still had to have mega body though.

Texas is just so weird. I was so unmidwest when I got to college. The photos from my first few weeks there, they’re just sad. I’m all doing the big earrings, trying to have big hair thing, and other girls were fresh-scrubbed straight out of the J. Crew catalog.

But I’ve adapted, don’t fret your little hearts about it.

So. Yeah.

My four-day weekend was great. Thanks for asking. I feel like I’ve already told you about it since I have not shut up about the babies since I’ve been back.

Next to them, nothing else seems to matter anymore. And not in a, oh-the-world-is-so-dark-nothing-matters-teen-angst way. In a, I-get-so-caught-up-in-stupid-stuff-that-doesn’t-matter way. Things that have no lasting influence, no positive flow on my life. Then when I let in things that do, I get blown away. The twins matter. My grandmother matters. My friends matter. How I treat Montego matters.

Then again, everything’s matter, right?

My MeMe gave me juicy gossip about her younger sisters over lunch on Saturday. Turns out they were both married and divorced before the age of 30. That floored me. Little Aunts Kate and Mary, involved in scandal that way. The drama! The intrigue! The ‘30s romance turned nightmare. Okay, nothing that dramatic, I’m sure. But it serves as a reminder that none of my problems are new. None of your problems are new. Someone, somewhere, at sometime, has suffered the hurt you hurt with right this instant. They survived. You will too.

My grandmother is child five of eight. Five of her siblings are still living. Oh, did I mention she’s almost 93? What is up our longevity genes? But her older brother, Albert, the boy whose friend she married, lays in a bed, all alone, all day long. And has for a couple years. His daughter stops by in the evening. She and her brothers were courteous enough to hire a helper to fix him breakfast and make sure he’s still alive in the morning. But the rest of the day he just lays in bed. No eyesight to watch t.v. No hearing to listen to the radio. He just lies there and waits to die.

His two sons live in the same town. My grandmother has a tendency to exaggerate for dramatic effect, but still. Come on, people. How sick does that make me? This sweet gentle man who introduced my grandfather to his little sister. The last living big brother of my delicate-hearted MeMe, left to die by his callous children.

And he’s not alone, I know. My own paternal grandmother sits in a nursing home, her mind wasting away, her memory escaping into the Alzheimer’s darkness, two of her sons thousands of miles away. It’s too much.

And then the lunch conversation shifted to PaPa and she told me how they would go dancing every Saturday night. Mostly the Foxtrot and the Waltz she said as she picked at her cherry turnover.

And then the tears came. And there we were, three generations of the same woman, crying silent whispers in the middle of Arby’s. Each of us twisting in our minds a special memory of the man we each knew in such different ways.

Who was this man that romanced my MeMe? Who was that man who told my mom stories as she’d run barefoot behind him in the field? There are so many things about him I’ve only recently learned. His talent for music. His love of song. I never heard him sing. I can’t even really remember his voice anymore. But I can still hear his laugh. Still feel his smooth head under my fingers. Still remember how strong his grip was. Even in those last weeks. He was so strong!

He had his final heart attack a few days before Christmas last year. He wouldn’t let MeMe call the EMT. Instead she frantically called her youngest daughter, my aunt who lives only five houses away. My uncle and cousin drove to my grandparent’s house and he refused to let the men to carry him to the car. He walked. He refused their hands to lift him into the Durango.

He hoisted himself.

This 96 year old dying man.

But I didn’t visit in those last days either. I’m no better than Albert’s children.

I will not make that mistake again.

I will not let fear and discomfort stop me from spending every earthly moment I can with the only ones who matter.