-
2003-03-23 @ 4:22 p.m.
When you take people for what they are - i do feel that sometimes you may be missing an entire truth, and entire life that they possess. I say this only because,I find others intersting. And not so much, what makes them tick now, but the backround that has created them.
I guess it is one in the same though.
My grandmother, on the surface is a very opinionated woman. Difficult at times and set in her ways. But one of my favorite things to do is ask her questions about her past. She comes up with very introspective answers, that i find quite interesting. And for a small woman, who loves things such as old movies, and George Clooney ("christ he is my sons age...but that smile and the way he turns his little head..well honey!" she is often fond of saying when put on the subject)there is also so much depth to her.
Last night - before i went to bed I was going through my mothers old drawers. ( while staying in her childhood home, i find it intersting to sleep in her bed, and wonder about her life..) I found this large, thick stack of letters - letters that i had read before as a child. They are letters written to my grandmother, from my grandfather, when they were both about 16 years old.
From what i gather, he was a "handful" and had to be sent to military school in Virginia after he flunked out of the 10th grade.
Most of the letters he starts with "Dear "Little Darling" " and ends with "Love Always David" - sometimes there is a P.S. telling her to "PLEASE BEHAVE AND NOT GO STEADY WITH ANYONE ELSE WHILE I AM GONE!"
but it is the middle ground of each letter that i found captivating, and almost romantic. It is him telling her how he misses her, how on a hot day he has peroxided his hair, and sat on a hill to get it blonde. He has been thinking of her, and wondering - why hasn't she written - is she mad at something? If so he asks to please just tell him.. Is she mad because she thinks he has been seeing Louise - because he hasn't even thought of Louise ever since he started going with her.. Throughout the letters, he curses and complains, but she remains his little darling.
and I'm not sure why this intrigues me so much. Maybe becuase i know what is to come in his life. It feels strange to read the hopes and dreams and ideas and complaints of a man, whom I will never know. A man who married my grandmother less than 2 years later when she is pregnant with my mother. A man who goes on to have 3 children all together, each 4 years apart. A man who owns a beer distributing company, (that when sold earns my family millions) and then at age 35 gets MS and 5 years later, at the young age of 40 dies.
reading those letters feels almost tragic. He has no clue of what is to come. He doesn't know that he will become an alcoholic and beat on his "little darling" , or that after his death she will battle years of alcoholism as well.
My point is - when you are young - even when your life is bad, you could never imagine the turns you will face in your future. The challenges and the triumphs.
and I look at my grandmother - sitting in her leather recliner, and I wonder what she thinks. she amazes me. The depth of her and how she hides it. I guess its called wisdom.