My Grandparents

My grandparents on my father’s side were simple people. PaPa and Gran-Gran had funny expressions that would always make me laugh. My little brother as a toddler was called Hot Rock. “Hey, Hot Rock”. And “Boh, he’s a little fat patate”. Gran-Gran used to say that after eating a rich meal, she was “Gonna be up on one elbow all night” to digest her food.

She also used to say, “Shake it, break it, hang it on a wall” when I would dance a little jig for her, after receiving a check at Christmas, for example. They owned a motel in our small town. Once, my waist-length hair got caught in the jacuzzi drain and my uncle had to brace with both legs to un-suck me from the filterless, famined vacuum. I bore a square-shaped bruise on my back for weeks after. It would have been so hip today.

Touring rock bands would stay at the motel. One of these bands was KISS. A far cry from Lawrence Welk, the sound my grandparents tuned into on the regular, KISS was my kindergarten self’s ideal. I remember asking to have a photo made with the band on the spiral staircase. The photo exists nowhere, and my mother denies the experience.

In her nursing home, Gran-Gran told me that PaPa cheated on her regularly with a receptionist in the motel. Nobody acknowledged it, and it made her feel insulted and furious, especially when she was at the motel. In her old age she told lots of stories, her cracking voice like broken gravel traveling lanes of painful memories and wishes unrealized. I was recording audio of her for a project one time when I left the room to retrieve a bookmark I had painted for her. It wasn’t until Gran-Gran was on her deathbed that I listened to the whole recording and heard her express her disapproval of me in my short absence. She said, “Her hair is pink, her hair is orange, and everybody wants to know, who that FREAK is”. It was tough to hear this as she was dying, and it took some time for me to forgive her. Their generation just couldn’t handle the changes ours had grown accustomed to. Even still, it hurts. I wanted to be a rebel but I wanted to be accepted as well. What did I expect?