Yesterday morning my 7 year old grandson Bixby came over. He only stayed about 5 minutes. We looked out the window and chatted about what we’d do that day. Then he said he was going back home. I asked him if he wanted some breakfast. He said no, he only came over to check on me.
When I was a little girl we lived in a duplex, our family on one side and my grandparents on the other. We were connected by a small front porch. Every evening after supper I’d go to my grandparents’ side to watch TV with them. Together we watched Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton, Lawrence Welk, Dragnet, The Wizard of Oz, and the country music shows that were on Saturday night. My chair was the one by the door and I’d lay back crossways on it with my head on one arm and my feet hanging over the other arm. The chair was in a corner by the front door and my Papa would often have to tell me to keep my feet off the wall. We didn’t talk much on those evenings, just quietly watched TV.
Our side of the house was chaos, as you’d expect with 7 kids. It was a small two bedroom home with a small addition that functioned as my parents’ bedroom on one end and our dining area on the other end. A sofa separated the areas and there was a place for our washer and dryer also. The back wall was all windows that looked out over the backyard. All four of us girls plus our baby brother shared one bedroom and our other two brothers shared the smaller bedroom.
I longed for quiet and calmness, even as a child, and was drawn to my grandparents’ side. Nothing was ever out of place there and it was quiet. In their bedroom my grandparents had a chest of drawers with two little doors that opened to a shelf on the top. A wooden sailboat was embossed on each door and the whole chest was stained a medium maple color. Behind those doors my grandmother kept treasures like tiny gold safety pins, antiseptics, and bandaids. Whenever we needed those she’d open the little doors and take them out. Sometimes we needed Mercurochrome or Merthiolate on our cuts and scrapes. These came in little brown bottles with glass droppers. One of them burned like crazy and one not so much. One turned your skin red but I can’t remember if both did. They contained mercury and aren’t sold in the US any more, as far as I know. We were always in hopes we’d get the one that burned the least when we had a cut! The choice was in the hands of the grandparent treating us and the one that burned the most was considered the most effective. Naturally.
My grandparents had a second bedroom that no one ever slept in except one time I can remember. Uncle Justin and Aunt Sweetie Mae, my grandmother’s brother and sister-in-law, came to visit one time. But most of the time it was just my Mamaw and my Papa, and in the evenings me. I loved my grandparents’ side. The beds were always made, nothing was where it shouldn’t be, no toothpaste in the bathroom sink, no muddy footprints on the floor. There were rules to follow that kept it this way but I was willing to accept them for the orderliness of the home. It was an escape for me from the loud, bustling side of the duplex where I resided most of the time. I loved being with my family but I’ve always needed to be alone sometimes. Rickie and I were each the same way and we understood that and were never offended by it as some people might be.
We didn’t watch scary shows at my grandparents’ house like so many shows are today. The Wizard of Oz was the scariest thing I remember seeing. After it was over I was afraid to walk back to our side of the duplex and hurried across the tiny porch to our door, afraid the flying monkeys would be lurking overhead to get me!
With the garage conversion here in Colorado, I’m now the Mamaw on the quiet orderly side of the duplex. Bixby’s side is where all the action takes place. Though he’s only one child, not seven, he has dogs and cats and video games and working parents and the disarray that accompanies all that. I don’t have a chest of drawers with two little doors with sailboats on the top. My brother has my grandparents’ dresser. But from time to time Bix comes over to get a bandaid from the little shelf in the pantry. I don’t subject him to red staining medicines that burn and maybe poison him but sometimes I’ll get the triple antibiotic gel out.
Sometimes in the evening he’ll come over for a while. He’ll tell me he’s just coming over to hang out with me. He’ll climb up on the bed and lean back against all my pillows and watch TV or play a game on the iPad. Sometimes he’ll tell me things that happened or things he’s learned. Last night he came over with his big plastic popcorn container with 4 small ones. They all look like the boxes you get popcorn in at the movies. I keep two kinds of popcorn here, the butter one he likes and the kettle corn I like. He gets his out and pops it. We decide where to store the large popcorn bowl and he leaves me with two small ones and takes two back home. He tells me not to forget where we decided to keep them.
Went I went to my grandparents’ house each evening, I never wondered if they wanted me there or if they’d rather be alone. It never occurred to me to wonder. We had our system and our rules and we each gave a little in order to have the bond. I didn’t know it at the time but those evenings formed me into the person I am. They gave me a break from the hustle and bustle of my family and taught me to respect how my grandparents lived. I sometimes wonder if they recognized the introvert that craved order in me and knew how much I needed to be there, that while I loved them and being with them, it was also something I needed. The calm, the quiet, the order. I don’t think I could have verbalized it myself at the time.
And now that the circle of our family’s life continues, and I’m the Mamaw with the orderly little house, I don’t have to wonder how they felt when I came over. I know. Bixby and I have our way of doing things, our own rules we follow, much as the little boy and his elderly aunt in Truman Capote’s A Christmas Miracle. He never overstays and he doesn’t come every day. And I have rules that are modified a little to fit a 7 year old that’s a bit more outgoing than I was. One late afternoon I came home from helping out at a garden club event and found him on the bed watching TV and having a snack. He knows how to find his shows on the Apple TV and he knows where the snacks are. And he never has to wonder if I want him here or if I’d rather be alone. He knows it’s his home too and we each give a little to have the bond. And I wonder if he’ll be formed by that as I was.
