Anger Management

I was sitting in a writers group the other night, and we were taking turns reading our works, everything going swimmingly.  Then someone read something about a blanket that her mother had "lovingly stitched" for her great grandson, and this woman's brother (also a member of said group) reminisced, saying "Yep, Mom put much love into those blankets." 

I suddenly had a flash that came and kicked me right in the stomach like a bully on a playground.  My grandmother, and my mom too, spent many hours crocheting blankets for people, especially us grandkids.  Maybe it was fresh because it just happened my deceased grandmother's birthday was the day before this meeting, so she was fresh on my mind.

Or, maybe it made me leave the room with rare tears in my eyes because all I could think was ... it's all a damn lie. 

It's bad enough to have memories lost in space, stripped from my mind, taken from me by age and circumstance.  But to have what was left ripped from my heart and washed in horror and hatred at the things I've recently discovered falling out of my family tree like rotten fruit... it left me feeling weak, vulnerable and quite foolish standing in a strange bathroom trying to calm myself and not break down. 

I hate crying.  Makes me look like shit - eyes looking like red rice puffed cereal, face all flushed, lips swollen like a fresh Botox job.

I'm not ready yet to talk about the things I've found out.  Someday, just not yet.  All I know is that I'm angry.  Years of blame, of my guilt that never should have been, years of contention - all for nothing.  Not a damn thing.  All the years my grandmother refused to comfort me, understand me... once again, there is no vindication in being the victor, especially where dead people are involved.

My husband tried to tell me "I'm sure she didn't mean..." Yes she did. 

Like the time I asked my stepdad "Is it true that Grandma thinks I'm prostituting myself to pay the rent?"
"Do you really think she'd say that?"
"Yes.  I do."

My grandmother's golden rule was drilled into my head, unrelenting like an oil rig on a hot Texas day: "Say what you mean, and mean what you say."  So she meant every word that ever came from her southern, judgmental lips. 

Ten years after her death, it's a whole new sting.