Looking back,
I never did say goodbye that Labor Day morning in 1983. My lips went on strike,
and would not form the words. I was
only ten years old, when it was time for me to leave my great-grandmother and
move to Atlanta, Georgia with my parents.
The problem was not where I was going, but whom I was leaving behind. I
learned on a warm September morning, I had a precious gift of unconditional
love; a love I had taken for granted for ten years.
She
had already lived through the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression, and three
major wars. By the time I was born, she
was 68 years old. To me, she was a female Goliath, standing only couple of
inches under six feet. Blessed with a warm caramel skin tone, moles and
wrinkles canvassed her face, she referred to them as the storylines of her
life. To this day, I can count the number of times I saw a toothy smile on her
almost daunting face. Believe me, it
was not often.
Living with her, I knew that every morning I
could count on piping hot apple and cinnamon oatmeal or my favorite pancakes
for breakfast. I knew every afternoon
who would pick me up after school. I
could always see her standing at the end of street near the school. The awful
pink hair rollers peeking through the equally awful purple and brown scarf
draping over her head always embarrassed me, but I never mentioned it. After all, she was Grandma. And although I could create some really
outrageous excuses to stay up after bedtime, I was always in the bed by 8:30
each night.
That
fateful day, she stood behind a jagged screened porch door waiting for me to
leave in my father’s old red Chevy pickup.
She pinched her eyes and shook her finger at me as I screamed and beat
my fists against the dirt in the backyard in my resistance to leave. I must say
I put up a good fight to stay in Montezuma, Georgia with my great-grandmother
that day. At least I did, until I heard that screen door crack open. All of my
wailing and kicking up little red dust storms miraculously ceased by the time
her feet reached the bottom porch step. She was either coming to rescue me or
give me one last spanking for the road.
It did not matter which; at least I was going to have a few more moments
with her.
She slowly approached me; her brown frame
towering over me. Without saying a single word, I quietly picked myself up from
the ground. I swept the dirt from my backside, and crawled into the back of the
truck. She leaned over the tailgate, kissed my forehead, and still without
saying a single word, walked back to the top step on the porch. As my great-grandmother walked away, I could
feel pieces of myself streaming behind her. I could almost see my skinny arms
wrapped around her legs holding on for dear life, or at least the only life I
ever knew.
Between my sobs, I begged my mom one last
time to let me stay. I promised to be a good little girl, if she would just let
me stay. I promised not to cry the next time Grandma pressed my hair for
church. I promised to make my bed before watching Saturday morning cartoons. I
must have promised to make right anything Grandma had ever fussed about.
Unfortunately, my eleventh-hour plea went on deaf ears. Grandma waved at us as
my father pulled out of the driveway. From the sound of that blood-curdling
cry, one would have thought someone had thrown me off the truck.
My great-grandmother had given me
everything I ever needed. She did not
have to do it. She had already raised
her four sons and a granddaughter (that would be my mom). There was nothing in the unwritten rulebook
of family responsibility that required her to raise some little snotty-nosed
great-grandkid. But, she did anyway. She never complained.
That day I realized her love and devotion
made me a better person. Of course, my thought process was much more elementary
in 1983. I remember saying to Mom, if I don’t have Grandma what is going to
happen to me now. I was not crying
because I was going to miss her. I was crying because I thought I was losing
the love of my great-grandmother, and to that little ten-year-old, there was no
love greater.