Since We're Sharing

Did I ever tell you guys about my grandmother?

I was an extremely fortunate child to grow up in a household with seemingly normal parents. (But don't we all think that at the time?) Neither one of them drank a drop of alcohol or did drugs. My daddy never said a foul word. (I get my filthy mouth from my mother.)

My grandmother, my mother's mother, was a different story. I think I must have been 12 when I realized the extent of her problems. Bi-polar, manic depressive, alcoholic. I can remember being maybe 10 years old and actually going in the store to buy it for her. Knowing in your little child gut that this is a little strange, but fuck, an adult just asked you to do it, an adult just sold it to you, so what more can you do? Oh, she was also a master manipulator. She could push buttons and pull strings and know exactly how to make you feel guilty if you decided you didn't want to do something. It was always all about her. One summer, I think she spent the entire 3 months in bed. My Mama and Daddy were both working and we were just too young to be left at home alone, or so they thought. They didn't realize we were alone. Thank God for ravioli in a can, dude. It got us through.

And if I had a dollar for every single time she threatened suicide...well, I would have a least a couple hundred dollars in the bank. I've seen her wave guns around, pull up in the yard and try and hook a hose to the exhaust, and don't forget the alcohol and such.

When she and my Grandfather finally divorced and my Mama was cleaning up and cleaning out her bedroom, I think she found at least 3 garbage bags full of empty beer cans.

She finally did stop, but not until she almost lost everything.

Now, I can't tell you all that without telling you that she was also a great cook, crazy bout Elvis, a fantastic artist, one of the most creative people I have ever known, and when she was sober, she loved us more than anything.

She died in 2000.

Fast forward to now and I see flashes of her in mother and in myself.

The good, the bad, the fucked up, and the crazy.