Years ago I came to terms with looking like my father's
mother, Grandma Minnie. I have her pallor and her blue eyes, as well as
(naturally) her inner sweetness.
Now the page has turned.
I posted a photo of myself on Facebook not long ago, posing
in a pink knit hat, as follows:
Very nice, everyone said. Then my cousin Linda piped up
with: "Did you know that, with that scowl, you look just like Grandma
Lottie?"
When I peeled myself off the ceiling, I wrote back to her
immediately to acknowledge that she was right. I even dug out an ancient photo
of me in 1970, posing with Grandma Lottie in front of her house, which further
proved the point:
Grandma Lottie was my mother's mother. She was consistently
dour and seldom wore her teeth unless absolutely necessary, which makes two of
us. Despite her forbidding look, however, she was always sweet and kind to me; I
remember the smell of food cooking in her little kitchen, and I remember walking
with her in her garden (where she often gave me plants and cuttings). The photo
at the head of this piece, probably taken in the 1920s, is nice: she’s almost
smiling in a Mona Lisa way.
Grandma Lottie married three times, which is enough to make
anyone look dour and forbidding. My grandfather was her second husband; he died
in a mine cave-in around 1926, so I never got to meet him. My mother, who was
only six or so when he died, always said he was a very nice man; I wish I could
have known him.
Anyway, back to Grandma Lottie. It’s plain that she wasn’t a
smiler. But what's wrong with that? I think smiling is overrated. It's supposed
to make you feel good, right? It's supposed to make other people feel kindly
toward you? I wonder. Greeting a stranger with a wintry glare can be a very
bracing experience, and it's strangely productive: it sets people back on their
heels and makes them wonder what they've done wrong.
It gives you the
advantage.
As I told cousin Linda: I'm proud to carry Grandma Lottie's
scowl and black-framed glasses into the new generation.
Somebody's gotta do it.
No comments:
Post a Comment