Grandma Dixie

I still remember Grandma Dixie's wake, I've never really known anybody to die before. I was at the precarious age of 14. Too old to feel comfortable with the term "child" and too young to feel like like much of a teenager. The rebelliousness I was supposed to be feeling during those turbulent times had not, and quite honestly, never really did surface. It was an awkward time, as it is for most at that age. I was discovering that there were things that I actually liked, just cause I did. Certain songs started to catch my ear, certain girls made me turn my head. Shockingly, I discovered that I didn't always agree with my mother and father anymore. Of course, being a fairly agreeable (and smart) boy, I rarely if ever actually let them in on this fact.


Life seemed so complex then, but in retrospect it was all quite simple. My mind was occupied with school, girls and any and all Detroit sports teams. I knew what death was, or at least I thought I did. How often does a 14 year old boy really have to face the disturbing concept of mortality? I was much more content to focus on things that made me happy. Call me shallow, but that's how it was.


As usual, I got off the bus after school and walked for 2-3 minutes to my house. I think I remember it was a warm day. School was winding down for the year and we could all taste the excitement of summer as it slowly and ponderously worked it's way closer. I opened the door and yelled "Mom! I'm home!" just as I did every other day. I'm not sure why I did that. My mother certainly did not have any problems hearing. I'm sure she was aware I was home by the sound of the door opening, the dog barking excitedly and by the fact that I came home at exactly the same time every day. And yet I felt for some reason that I must announce my entrance into the home, for surely my mother rejoiced to have her favorite (and only) son in her home once again.


This Thursday afternoon though, there was no response. "Mom?" I shouted again, mixed with a slight twinge of confusion. My mother and I had something of a ritual. I declared I was home, and she always welcomed me home with her standard "Oh, hi honey. How was school today?" To which my reply was "Fine". I didn't really want to go into detail of how my day was. I was done with school and there were very few days that I wanted to immediately rehash with my mom. What I really wanted to do was to forget the day, eat a snack and see what my friends were up to. I didn't want to tell her anything about my day, but I did like that she asked.


Today the routine was broken. "Mom?" I yelled again, now slightly concerned after twice not getting any response.


"In here, honey" I heard her muffled voice from behind a closed door. It sounded... strange. Her words seemed a little forced and laden with emotion. It entered into my prepubescent mind that it sounded like she was crying.


14 year old boys are not normally comfortable with crying women, especially when that woman happens to be their mother. Suddenly I felt a little alarmed and a lot awkward. I quickly walked up to her bedroom door and pressed my ear against the door. I thought I could her some sniffling and a few quiet sobs.


"Mom, are you in there?" It really wasn't the most intelligent question I could have asked. I'm not sure who else I expected to be in there since I had just heard her voice coming from behind the door. "Can I come in?" I gently asked.


"Yes."


I slowly opened the door, really not sure what to expect. My mother sat on her bed, holding a kleenex in one hand while the other wiped away tears. Her eyes were swollen and red. She had been crying awhile. Oddly enough, my first thought was that I had done something to upset her. My mind did a quick, yet thorough, inventory of my actions from the previous week to see if perhaps there was something that might have caused this level of emotion from her. This self-examination quickly faded as I starting feeling something toward my mother I had never felt before: compassion.


I was embarrassed as I started to feel tears welling in my own eyes. I didn't even know what was wrong and I was about ready to start crying myself, like a little girl. I gulped the sadness down angrily and maintained control. I felt a new emotion starting to rise within me. Fear. What could make my mom cry? She was a tough woman. I had never seen her cry before. Anger was an emotion that was pretty familiar from her, but not tears. Not even when my dad left. This was a woman who had things under control. She always had a plan, liked things just so, but also had a quick and ready smile for her children, especially me.


It was with a bit of trepidation that I asked "Are you ok? What's wrong?". Again, my mind whirled, trying to decipher what could possibly make her cry. Was she sick? Whatever it was, it had to be serious.


"My mom died today." she said in a low whisper which was immediately followed by two fresh paths of tears. They quickly ran down her face and fell onto her blouse before she could wipe them away.

She quickly added "Your Grandma Dixie, my mom, she passed away this afternoon." Apparently she thought I might have forgotten who her mother was. I kept this thought to myself and wondered why such a stupid thought had even entered my head. Truthfully, it did take a minute for her first comment to register. I sometimes forgot that my mother was a regular person. Not that she was unusual, but it seemed strange to me that she had a mom and dad. She was my mom, it's the first role I knew her as and the one I felt most comfortable with.


"Oh. I'm sorry." This will sound terrible to you that love their grandmas or na-nas or nonnies or whatever dumb names kids call their grandmothers, but I was not sad that Grandma Dixie had died. She was not a grandmother that one nicknamed with anything cute. The fact is, I didn't really like her. She scared me. She was a very stern, harsh lady. I didn't really understand what an alcoholic was, but I knew she was one. I also knew that being an alcoholic did not make you a very nice person.


I saw Grandma Dixie a few times a year. Every once in awhile we would go over to her house for dinner. Grandpa Henry had died when I was just a little boy and I had no memories of him. I sometimes thought maybe he died on purpose just so he could get away from her. She never hurt me or anything like that, but she didn't need to. She was not a big woman, quite the contrary. She couldn't have been more than 5 foot something and weighed less than 125 pounds. Apparently the mix of vodka and Pall Malls really helps keep the weight off.


At first glance, you might think a strong gust of wind would be enough to knock her over. At least until you got to know her and you realized the wind wouldn't dare. It has always fascinated me how such a small woman could control so many people. One look into her eyes and you knew that Grandma Dixie did not suffer fools lightly, in fact, she didn't suffer them at all. If they were stupid enough to stick around her, she made them suffer with her acerbic tongue. I'll never forget the first time I heard the word "bitch". I overheard my parents talking a few years before dad left. He said "I'm pretty sure the word "bitch" came around because God knew one day your mother would be born, and no other word would describe her so well." Mom didn't like that so much. I didn't realize it was a bad word until I called my sister one a few days later. I thought it was an appropriate usage but my parents did not agree.


Looking at my mother sitting there, I didn't know what else to say. I wasn't sorry she was gone, but I was sorry about how it was making my mom feel. I remember being a little confused. I didn't want Grandma Dixie to die, but it wasn't a sad thing. I knew Grandma Dixie had caused my mom a lot of grief over the years. Why was she so sad?


"Why are you crying?" I innocently asked her.


She looked up at me with her red eyes and the corner of her mouth twitched upward in what was almost a slight smile. "Because, peanut, even though she was a difficult woman, she was still my mom." She gently patted the bed next to her, inviting me to sit next to her. I really didn't like it when she called me "peanut" anymore, but I didn't seem to mind right now.


She poked me in the side as she said "Wouldn't you cry if I died?" I still remember the playful twinkle in her eyes as she said that. I sat right next to her and told her I was sorry she was sad.


She wrapped her arms around me and gave me a tight squeeze. As a 14 year old boy, I was not a big fan of "mom hugs" anymore, but I offered no resistance. I realized that she was not hugging me because she thought I needed it, she was hugging me because she needed to. I hugged her right back as hard as I could and whispered to her "I love you, mom".


For some reason this caused a new wave of tears. She put her hands on my shoulders and held me at arms length, gazing at me lovingly through liquid filled eyes. "I know you do sweetie. You're a great kid." I gave her one of my embarrassed smirks and looked away.


When I got home the next day, my mom told my sisters and I to get ready. I was confused, because I couldn't fathom where we would be going on a Friday night. When I asked where we were going, my older sister Samantha gave me one of her famous "I'm shocked you have managed to survive this long since you are such an obvious retard" looks, or at least that's what that look meant to me. Even though she was only 2 years older than me, I'm pretty sure she thought she was at least twice my age in maturity.


"We have to go to the viewing, for Grandma Dixie." my mother replied. Of course, she was already set to go. "Hurry up now, and NO jeans."


"Aw mom," my younger sister Jasmine whined, "do I haaaalfta go?"


"Yes, you "halfta go."" my mother replied. Her voice carried the tone that told us all she was in no mood for arguing.


Awesome. I wasn't exactly sure what a viewing was, but it didn't take a whole lot of imagination to figure out what the evening entailed. Not only was I not going to have ANY fun tonight, I was going to have to dress up on a warm day and behave, all while we were in the same building with a dead person.


Suddenly, I felt a little queasy as I remembered that Grandma Dixie was going to be the dead person. I had never seen a dead person before, except on TV. And not even that too often, as mom didn't want us watching "that violent garbage". Did I have to look at her? What were the rules? How long would we be there? I didn't know how it was supposed to work and was not interested in gaining this knowledge. And yet I knew by the end of the evening I would have had a new experience, no matter how much I didn't want it.


Even stopping at McDonalds for dinner was not enough to turn my mood. Normally this would have been a treat that would have turned any mood, however dismal. My cheeseburger and fries were fairly tasteless, not carrying the normal McDonaldsy goodness. To make matters worse, I forgot to tell them to hold the onions. I tried to scrape the little buggers off, but I knew from past experience that their mere presence would continue to haunt the taste of the meal. Not for the first time I wondered how anyone could like these little white pieces of nastiness and why they had to cut them into the size of molecules. Ha. I bet Grandma Dixie liked onions. She probably ate them raw.


As I chewed my tainted burger, I couldn't help think of what lay in store for me. I was nervous. I wondered if Samantha was nervous, but didn't dare ask. I sneaked a peek over at her. She looked fairly normal, but I thought that I could discern a touch of unease. For some reason this made me feel a little better. Jasmine, however, was clueless. She was totally enraptured in the cheap piece of plastic (or as some would call it, a toy) embedded in her Happy Meal. She danced her little Barbie on top of her nuggets. Jasmine had arranged her nuggets across the table as if they were rocks in a pond and Barbie was having a great time jumping from nugget to nugget.


"Jazz! Hurry up and eat. No playing! We need to get to the funeral home." My mother looked very tense and unhappy. Another omen for a miserable evening.


We ate the rest of the meal in silence and were soon bundled back up into the car. I gazed out the window as we drove along, and way too quickly we were pulling into a parking lot.


"Alright kids, I really need you to be on your best behavior tonight." Mom said this while simultaneously straightening Sam's hair, smoothing my dress shirt and wiping a bit of dried ketchup off Jasmine's mouth with a saliva moistened napkin.


"Oh God, I need a drink", I heard her mumble as we walked in.


As we entered the building, I immediately wanted to leave. Everyone looked stiff and uncomfortable. The few people that were present were all dressed up. Now I understood why my mother had forced me to wear what she did. At times I thought she made decisions just to inconvenience or maybe even to torture me. As we stood in the entryway, it dawned on me that maybe there were actually reasons why she did some of the things she did. Still, I do think there were times she just wanted me to suffer. This was not one of those times.


We stood there, just inside the door as if we had entered the wrong building. My mother had just stopped. She seemed unwilling to take another step. It was as if she thought that if she took another step, it would only confirm the loss of her mother.


Sensing hesitation from my mother made us all feel awkward. She was not prone to indecision or weakness. It was not a state I enjoyed seeing her in. For a second, her emotions tried to transfer to me. I could almost palpably feel a strange sense of panic and even the desire to flee the building as if it were on fire and we needed to escape with our lives. I struggled briefly against this odd wave of emotion and was successful in quieting it.


Then I did something that was so simple, so natural, yet it was a turning point in so many different ways. I reached over and grabbed my mother's hand, holding it firmly. She was still a few inches taller than I was so she slightly bent her head to look at me.


"It's going to be ok." I told her. And then I gave her hand a little squeeze. "C'mon. Let's go. It's ok."


I will never forget the way she looked at me. In her eyes I saw a wide range of emotions. I saw surprise, thankfulness, a little determination, and best of all, respect. It may sound silly, but I believe that in that moment, I became a man. At least it was the first time I ever felt like one. It still fascinates me how in that moment, when my strong mother was so fragile, that something innate within me rose up to protect that weakness.


I would love to tell you that after that I always acted like a man, always rose up to defend the weak. It would be great to tell you that my older sister, who only seemed to have scorn for me, saw this and started treating me differently. Not so much. Life continued on. The significant moment in the rushing torrent of time, as they all are. It may have been lost, but it was stored in my memory.


The moment was broken as my mother stepped forward. She seemed strong again, it was that quick that she regained her sense of who she was and what she was there for. Her fragility was only displayed for a second before she packed it up and stored it away, like winters gloves and boots, stored away when spring comes. And yet I noticed she had not released my hand.


We were greeted very formally and politely by an older man who introduced himself to us as one of the directors of the funeral home. I still think it is odd that they call it a funeral home. It's not like anyone lives there. There are people that actually HAVE homes attached to the funeral home, or funeral parlor as some call it. To me, that's all kinds of messed up. Mr. Funeral Home Director offered us his condolences on the passing of our loved one. I wasn't really sure what condolences were, but it sounded like a nice thing to say. I hate to admit it, but Mr. Director looked like he was going to be needing his own services fairly soon.


As we walked into the viewing room, I noticed a few people that I recognized. My 2 uncles were there and one of my aunts. There were also a few people that I knew I had seen before but could not remember who they were. I figured that I should know them since they were probably family and I would be required to converse with them at some point in the evening.


"Sam!" I whispered. "Who's that?" I cocked my head subtly in the direction of an older man wearing a gray suit that was just a few shades darker than his hair. The top of his head was bald, but he had let the back grow out and had tied his hair into a ponytail. Do they still call it a pony tail if it's on a man? I imagine that ponies everywhere would feel insulted if we did.


"That's great uncle Frank. You probably haven't seen him since you were a baby."