Fifteen years after the
earthquake, I received this letter
from Grandma, my long
dead father's mother, in the glorious
Spring of 1990:
Dear Brandon;
How are you? My husband passed away. His children
have given him many grandchildren,
and since he was very
wealthy, they're all well
taken care of. Why don't you call
me?
Your Grandmother, Antoinette.
So I did. I called her several times during those final
years of her life, because
I wanted to hear about her life,
my roots, in Europe. Instead,
she wanted to make sure I
understood that the law
allowed her to give family members
gifts of up to ten thousands
dollars each year. She told me
about her "vunderful"
life and travels with her rich retired
husband, how they traveled
the world and met all kinds of
rich "vunderful" people
although she could remember few
details, when pressed.
I tried to get her to talk about her early life, and
she would change the subject,
which made me suspicious and
created lurid fantasies
about something she tried to hide.
"Grandma, tell me about your past, in Europe."
"Oh, there's nothing to tell."
"You must have traveled around."
"No. Only once. To Italy. I vent with my Uncle, a
famous Archbishop."
"Tell me about it."
"Oh no. Nothing to it, really."
Silence.
"So, do you remember your first kiss?"
That opened the floodgates. She talked for almost a
half an hour, nonstop.
I know more about that young man's
clothing than I ever did
about Grandma's life with her two
husbands. Over the next
couple of years, I failed again and
again to coax more information
out of her about her own
life, about our family.
She thought herself too poor to go
into detail, and refused
to "say anything negative". Didn't
want to "soil the nest",
as she put it.
This made us grandkids suspect the worst about those
silences. Did she go to
Italy for an abortion, and then
immigrate to the US out
of shame?
She would talk about how rich all her husband's friends
are, and that they don't
come around to visit her anymore,
and she doesn't want to
see any of them anyway. Especially
not his children. She
suspects they never accepted her.
She always felt ashamed of her accent, she said.
She took all her silent thoughts and memories, our
family's oral history,
and her useless shame, to her grave.
I felt she should only regret her lack of self esteem,
but as a good Catholic,
steeped in medieval notions of
guilt, sin, and redemption,
she locked herself into a little
glass coffin and clutched
the key to her breast. It reminded
me of my suspicion that
people taught to despise sex as
something shameful, dirty,
or even unholy, can deny
themselves and others
sexual pleasure, and permit their
bodies to get fat or otherwise
unhealthy.
I once, and I mean one time, went out with a girl who
got nauseous as she got
hot because her religious mother
equated sex with evil.
Her ex-husband raped her to get her
pregnant and give birth
to two children. In general,
whenever a Mexican sees
a child somewhat naked, they tend to
shout "Cochino!" which
translates as filthy pig, or swine.
Not the best situation,
and to couple that with the misogyny
inherent in Mexican Spanish
merits an entire novel to
explore its ramifications.
I don't believe in secrets or censorship. In a perfect
society of acceptance
and trust in each person's right to
live and make their own
gaffes, blunder, bloopers, and faux
pas. We learn and benefit
from other's mistakes, and artists
create stories, books,
and movies about them. No one wants
to read about a perfect
family without problems, although
many want to censor all
discussion about the most common
problems. Few people respect
the rights of others to chose
and make mistakes, to
let each individual take
responsibility for their
own process of becoming, as long as
no one (else) gets hurt.
One must assume that when people
agonize over some decision
and then decide what to do, they
need to take that route.
An open, tolerant with acceptance,
Post-Industrial multicultural
society of curious humanists
should keep an open mind
and a watchful eye, to offer
helpful advice instead
of judgment, and distrust the use of
threats of punishment,
which doesn't work.
For too long we've overlooked the vengeful hatefulness
behind the oxymoron of
our "Criminal Justice" system.
When people refuse to listen, or want to shut others
up, they betray themselves
as weak.
Information doesn't make people vulnerable, not even
children, because they
absorb at their level of
comprehension. People
benefit from information, not
ignorance. People either
try to understand what happens to
themselves and others,
or they refuse to for reasons that
stem from their upbringing
and education, or inherent in
their personality, or
due to social pressures. Each
individual develops their
own vulnerabilities and strengths
from their environment
and their own aptitudes, and they
change over a lifetime.
Research about how images of violence or hardcore
pornography affect children
often show no conclusive
results, but society's
tolerance of violence in foreign
policy, sports, and entertainment
coupled with an almost
complete blackout on sexually
explicit information bodes ill
for that society. With
luck, all of us will participate in
sex and avoid violence,
not the other way around. People
need information, not
abstinence, which cannot help married
people plan their families.
Some people remain ignorant and ignore others to avoid
damage to their own self
esteem. As long as the Untied
States stays in its Ivory
Tower as protector of Democracy
and Freedom, home of the
heroes of both World Wars, it can
enjoy the view and look
down at the rest of the world.
Those on the ground see the terrain in a different
light, and far too many
live in the dark shadow of the
tower.
Antoinette could never face facts that might criticize
or cause her to distrust
the ostensible policies of the
United States government,
because she worshiped this land as
her savior. She didn't
need to forgive our trespasses,
because she walked through
Europe's valley of the shadow of
death, and once inside
the United States, she could see no
evil.
She died in 1995, 95 years old, alone in her luxury
apartment in an upscale
Florida retirement community.
I wrote a poem.
In bed, powdered Antoinette winches
her self up
Her white hair bunched and caught
Another warm white Atlantic morning
Streams through the second story windows
A mosquito net mist of white hot gauze.
She pulls a white mirror from the white headboard,
Purses her thin aristocratic lips
Does her crooked smile, the Old World flirt
Fingers fluff her hair.
"How Vonderful they Vould tink it here" she sighs,
A million miles away.
"Our yacht crossed the oceans
"Many times those fifteen years
"Before he passed aVay."
She lays back down
Crosses her heart and did she think of us?
How fair she doled and saved
The best bought, at the best price.
Proud of what she sold well,
Ready to join him, atop that hill,
Their twin tombs encircled by a low brick wall
Around the bare cement that caps their graves.
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