I Facetimed my stepdaughter the other day. She’s been experiencing some arachnophobia. She wants all the people in her life to keep her from all the spiders in the world, which includes semi-regular “inspections,” of her room before bed. I simply don’t stand for young people, but especially young women, depending on anyone for anything they can do themselves. So, I do the “inspections” and I refill her “anti-spider spray” (I just put a splash of eucalyptus in a bottle of water) and the ones that exist not only in her imagination, I trap and take outside. But I’m trying to help her work through it when she can.
So she talks about having found a daddy long leg.
“Oh that’s a good spider for an arachnaphobe,” I say. “They look scary but they are totally safe for humans. And. Did you know? They actually eat the spiders that are dangerous. So, if you ever feel like it, you can try to get used to having one around. Because it might feel scary, but they’re safe.”
“Kind of like tarantulas?”
“Yep. Exactly like tarantulas. You know my Grandma Barbara was an arachnaphobe, and my grandpa, well he had a pet tarantula. Can you imagine that?”
“Why would he have a tarantula if his wife was scared of it?” she asked, in a tone that made it clear she thought this was horribly rude of my grandfather.
“Well. Grandpa was kind of an asshole.”
April was appalled. Not at my language. She’d been used to my sailor’s tongue for years. What she didn’t like was that my grandmother, of whom I regularly speak highly, was married to anything but perfection.
She has heard me tout the mantra that if someone isn’t treating you well, you change that. She knows I left my ex-husband when I felt I wasn’t heard and supported and she’s seen me snap at her father for the slightest misbehavior. Once we taught her the word patriarchy, she pretty much lost all patience she ever had for all masculine-presenting people besides her dad.
And she’s even on the fence about him some days.
She gets a look on her face that reminds me of my partner when he, a labor organizer, hears of unjust working conditions and I know he’s about to ask, “Who is your union representation?”
“Why. Would she put up. With someone. Who was an asshole.” She demands.
“Well that’s a good story,” I say, “do you want to hear it?”
She nods.
“Well. First, you need to understand the world she was born into.
“Grandma was born in the 50’s. Now, women could work, but the jobs were really limited and didn’t pay well. Even if a woman did work, she couldn’t get a bank account by herself. I don’t think women could own property.”
April rolled her eyes in the universal femme meaning, “Ugh. Men.”
“Now my grandpa, well he was kind of an asshole. He could be very selfish. But he loved hard. And he loved my grandma dearly.
“Well, since women had no way of making real money, no way to really buy a house, they were taught that the way they were to get through life was to find a man who could help support them. Also, remember there’s no birth control, or at least limited birth control, and there were basically no abortions. So, you know, when a couple-a straight couple-got together…..You know you shouldn’t have sex as a teenager. But some people did when they were like,” I started to say 15 and remembered my audience, “you know, older teenagers…..sev-eighteen and totally ready for it and stuff….they might sort of slip up and have sex and have a baby.
“Well there are options now, but what you did back then was get married and raise the baby. So it was kind of common for people to get married as teenagers sometimes.
“And you know how you have two parents plus me who love you and take care of you and would never hurt you? And how not everyone has that? So when my grandma was a teenager, she had a dad, maybe a stepdad I don’t remember, who was abusive. And that was really crappy. Well she was dating my grandpa, and my Grandma Ellen, Grandma’s mom, pulled Grandpa aside. She said, ‘Bob, you take my Barbara and you get her out of here. You marry her and have a family and keep her safe.’ So Grandpa said yes ma'am, and that’s what he did.
“He was an ass but loving. He supported Grandma, and they had kids together. And mostly he was a good husband. He was grumpy a lot, but Grandma kept him from being too cranky around us. He’d curse and she’d say, ‘Bob! The kids are here. You watch your language!’ He’d drive too fast. And my grandma’d smack his arm from the passenger seat and say ‘Bob! The kids are in the car, you slow down.’ All my life he’d be an ass and I’d hear, ‘BOB!’
“She kept him in line. She made him be a good father, a good grandpa.
“Well he got that tarantula. And we all heard all day was, ‘Now BOB that spider better stay out of my way. I don’t like it BOB.’
“Grandpa said, ‘Oh relax. It stays in its cage. And when I take it out it goes right back in, nothing to worry about Maw.’
“Well of course the spider got out. Got lost in the garage. Grandma freaked out. We heard, ‘BOB I SWEAR TO GOD I HATED THAT SPIDER AND YOU SAID IT WOULD NEVER GET OUT AND NOW ITS LOOSE IN THE GARAGE AND I SWEAR BOB IM SO MAD I CAN’T SEE STRAIGHT……’ Poor Grandma.”
April’s opinion of Grandpa has not improved in the slightest as the story has gone on. “I’d be so mad,” she said.
“Oh she was. But he was a good man, mostly. My aunt, the one who passed away last summer, you remember? You know how she was a qauadraplegic and lived in a wheelchair? Well you know, a lot of people, their kids grow up and then they have time to themselves. Well my grandma, she was a mom and might have been able to go and be something else or divorce my grandpa but my aunt got in her accident, and then she needed someone to take care of her. So even if my grandma wanted to leave, she couldn’t. Because she couldn’t get a job.
“She spent all her time taking care of my aunt. And that was kind of ok. It was a lot of work but she loved her daughter and when you have a kid and they need that kind of help that’s just what you do. So she stayed. And took care of my aunt. They both did.
“And you know I don’t think she wanted to leave. My grandpa was grumpy, but he loved my grandma dearly.
“When my grandma got sick, I was there the night she was dying. She was laying in her deathbed. Well it was a recliner. And she was really close to passing and her body was just spent. She needed to move on and go live her next life, her spiritual life. But she was really worried about all of us. She worried we would need her. She worried Grandpa would need her.
“My grandpa, man was he crying. And he was taught that men don’t cry. So it was a big deal. I saw him cry only once before this, when his cat died. He loved that cat too. But he loved my grandma so much more.
“He went over to her and he whispered to her, ‘Maw, you can go. It’s time to go. I love you. We’ll be ok. It’s ok to go.’
“He sobbed and sobbed while he said this but she needed to hear it so he said it. People need to hear that at the end. She passed away a few minutes after that.
“After she passed away, Grandpa just seemed to lose the will to live.
“He sat in his house by himself. He got a dog, that dog died, and he got another one. He bought things online. He sold things online. But he stopped leaving the house. He stopped having people over for holidays like they always had. He wouldn’t even come over when we hosted. No matter how many times we asked and asked and asked he just stopped leaving the house.
“Twenty years went by. He really only left to see my aunt and pay for her home. I saw him once a year, when he’d meet me at Aunt JJ’s with money to take her Christmas shopping. Sometimes he’d give me money too, but he’d say, ‘This isn’t a Christmas present. I don’t believe in those. This is for bills.’ He refused to let people in his house. He didn’t clean. He just sat alone in his house because after Grandma died he didn’t think there was any point in anything.
“Grandma could have left, maybe. But I think she knew how much he loved her, and how much he tried to take care of her in his own way. I think that’s the biggest reason she stayed.”
My story finished, I watched my stepdaughter as she processed this. Her wild hair is haloing her face and her jaw is slacked. All hatred for my grandpa is gone. She’s seeing him as a complex man, both bad and good, as we all are. Not black or white but mostly grey.
She seems speechless for a moment. Then, “That’s actually a very romantic story,” she admits.
“It is isn’t it?”
A beat passes while we sit and contemplate love and loss. I think we’re both wondering if we will ever be loved like that. I know she is loved even more by myself and her parents. She’s a kid though and has no idea how much we love her though. So she only wonders.
Suddenly April’s expression changes again. This time she’s alert and needs to say something now.
“Hey can we wrap this up? My friend is texting.”
Her eyes are scrolling the corner of the screen as she reads the text; I don’t exist any longer.
“Ok well I love you a whole bunch. I hope you have a great night ok? Talk to you soon?”
“K, bye.”
The screen goes blank.
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