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| Crying with My Ancestors Back to The Expanded Sky |
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| by Alice Wisler | |||
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Sometimes I think you need a little of your own history in order to be able to understand history.
I can’t remember never knowing about those relatives. They were on my Grandma Hall's side, residing on the
farm in Amelia County, Virginia. Patsie — we never call her Grandma — would sit at her oak dining
room table, framed by the gold wall paper and talk about these people — Nonnie, Lou, Ralph and countless
others, all making my head swim with Old Relative Fatigue. Although I had visited the country, fed the cows and had my picture taken in front of the tobacco crop, I had yet to value these relatives. By the time I met them, they were well over sixty, country folk, and most, like Patsie, with only an eighth grade education. I was a city-raised missionary kid, spending my childhood in Japan. These relatives hugged me too often and acted like they knew me. After the turkey sandwiches, lemonade and a few rides on the porch swing, I was eager to go home. | |||
| More from Alice Wisler | |||
| As a college student and
throughout my early twenties, whenever I'd sit around her dining room table eating
fried chicken, biscuits and salad, I'd hear some anecdote from Patsie's farm-raised days. At age seven she played
in the field one gloriously sunny day instead of sticking to her chore — picking tobacco. She recalled the spanking
for her disobedience. Classmates at the county school teased, calling her "Tar Heel" because she and her family
had moved from North Carolina, the Tar Heel State, to Virginia. As if this wasn't bad enough for a young girl to
endure, she was also ridiculed for her freckles. Hearing that freckles disappeared if washed with the early
morning dew, Patsie often scrubbed her cheeks and nose with the moisture. Not only did her brothers laugh at
her for this ritual, but her freckles remained.
Affectionately Patsie told tales of her sisters and brothers, and Aunt Chachi, who lived with Mama, Papa and the children. What kind of name is Chachi, I would muse. Patsie talked about them like they were a part of us, which made me feel I should be interested. So I'd pose a question or two. Other than my infrequent remarks, it was mostly just Patsie reminiscing as the sun sank into the horizon, ending another day. I don't have time for this, I'd think. There were exams to study for, dates to go on, and a big world I wanted to travel. A short while ago I took my children to visit Patsie. The now ninety-year-old silver-haired woman sat in the red
winged-back chair and somewhere in the hot, sleepy summer afternoon I was aware she was again filling me in on the relatives of Amelia County.
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Living Life from the Graveyard Is There Laughter After Death? Grief Meets the Answering Machine There is Nothing Wrong with You! Scared to Death of Dying and Denying Grief | ||
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Of all the times I'd heard this story, I'd never cried. But on this afternoon in July, the tears welled and
curved along my cheeks. Reaching for the photo album on the coffee table, I held the black and white photo of
my great-grandmother and looked into her young face. I touched her hair and arms. I knew these arms ached
because they no longer were able to hold her precious Johnny. "I know, I know," I whispered at her picture.
While blood had united us as relatives, the more definitive bond was that we were both bereaved mothers. For I,
too, had a child die — my son, Daniel. It had not been a car accident, but a cancer-related death. Although there were six decades between the deaths of Johnny and my Daniel, as mothers our lives had no doubt been similar after the deaths of our sons. Days of anguish, doubt, sorrow and frustration of having chores to do and other children to care for when our newly-broken hearts begged us to sit and sob. I cried for this woman in the black hat; I cried for me. These days I am listening to the tales of those relatives. I sit on the edge of my chair and take it all in. For those relatives, though far removed from my city life, are a part of me. Patsie believed they always were. It just took awhile and some history of my own to recognize this. | |||
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