Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Since my parents opted to move to Alabama when we were all young, my siblings and I grew up away from extended family. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were spread mostly throughout Michigan and Northern Illinois. We’d make it up north every three or four years for a few days, and it was always interesting to spend time with these people who, though essentially strangers, looked so much like us.

My Dad’s side of the family was whom we went to visit most often. He had six younger siblings and many of them still lived just north of Chicago where he'd grown up. Visiting them was fun, but in a chaotic, occasionally overwhelming way that made you happy you were going home at the end of the visit. They were an unpretentious crew. My grandmother was indifferent to housekeeping and cooking, but loved cats. We embraced her proclivity and began referring to her as Grandma Kitty. Her favorites were a pair of noisy Siamese cats that she named Co-Co and She-She. When they died, she adopted another pair and gave them both the name Pretty Boy. She always referred to those cats in a collective manner.

My Grandma Kitty was friendly and boisterous, and always willing to slip you a twenty. She thought cheating at cards was fine, but was unsympathetic if you were dumb enough to get caught. My favorite thing about visiting was the fact that they always had canned soda and kept it outside during the winter months to keep it cold. I thought this was ingenious. My Grandfather was quiet and preferred to isolate himself from the clamor going on around him. As kids, we used to have contests to see who could make him say the most during a trip.

One visit I took home the prize when he told me to leave the room. He and I were sitting on the couch watching a movie in the den when all of the sudden some nudity flashed on screen.

“Leave the room,” he said.

I scooted off the couch and ran away as fast as I could. Afterwards, I searched out my siblings and relayed the story in a tone that was breathless from all the excitement.

My mother’s side of the family was different. She only had one sibling. Her family had a lake house and a boat and took vacations in the Florida Keys and lived in an oversized house in a scenic part of Grand Rapids. My mother’s parents were alcoholics who spent their free time refining new ways to hurt each other’s feelings. My mom’s childhood anecdotes are appalling and tend to run along the lines of:

One time when I was nine, I went to the dentist to have a procedure done and they put me under. Your grandmother didn’t want to be late for her bridge game so she gave me money to take the bus home after the procedure, only I was so out of it from the anesthesia that I got on the wrong bus. I got lost in some terrible neighborhood and ended up having to call Bompa (my grandfather) out of work because Mimi (my grandmother) didn’t like to answer the phone while she was playing cards.

These anecdotes are usually relayed by my mother with a feigned casualness after everyone’s started into their third glass of wine. When I was eight, Mimi and Bompa moved to Alabama because Bompa had a degenerative illness, and they needed some help. They moved into a little house a couple blocks away, and became a common fixture at family dinners. I can’t recall a single time that my parents had a fight in front of me. On the other hand, my grandparents passed their time sitting around the kitchen table saying terrible things to each other until one of them would begin to weep. Afterward, the non-weeping grandparent would stare contentedly out the bay window until the weeping grandparent had calmed down enough to resume fighting.

You can only assume that they fought when we weren't around as well, and one instance definitely seemed to verify this probability. Bompa was in a motorized cart, and one day called my father at work to tell him that he had to come over right away. When my father got there, he saw that Bompa had ‘accidentally’ attempted to run Mimi over with his cart, but couldn’t make it all the way over. Mimi was lying on the floor stuck half way under Bompa’s cart. When my dad got there, Bompa was in his cart on top of Mimi reading a novel.

Another time at Sunday dinner, Bompa started choking on his steak. Really choking. First he turned grey, then he turned purple, then he turned an unsettling shade of maroon. I remember staring wide-eyed as my father did the Heimlich, and my mother frantically dialed 911. My older brother was crying, and my little sister was clinging to my mom. I glanced over at Mimi and watched mesmerized as she lifted another forkful of peas into her mouth, coolly surveying the horrific scene set before her.

When my father finally managed to dislodge the piece of beef stuck in my grandpa’s throat, Bompa angrily speared the partially masticated food. Cut it in two and popped half of it back into his mouth.

For Christmas one year, they gave me a beautiful, stuffed Pig wearing a pink tutu. I could tell as soon as I touched it that it was expensive. I took it out of the box and hugged it tight against my chest. Then I walked over to give Mimi a hug in order to express my thanks. As I was pulling away, she suddenly grabbed my wrist.

My pulse was thundering in my ears as I leaned forward to hear what she was going to say.

“If I ever see a speck of dirt on this toy, I’ll take it away.”

“Okay,” I responded in a quavery voice as I turned back to look anxiously at my mother.

That same day I spilt hot chocolate on the pig, and the family dog chewed off part of its snout. A few months later, I’d taken off its tutu to see if it would fit one of the cats. I loved that pig, and made sure to hide it under my bed whenever my grandparents came over.

There are lots of other memorable events. Like the time I was ten and forgot my charm bracelet at my grandparent’s house. Mimi kept it for a year to teach me a lesson.

There are some nice memories too, like when sometimes Bompa would let you crouch on the base of his motorized cart next to his legs while he whizzed around the house. Or the fun-size snickers and root beer they kept on hand. ‘Only one!’ My grandmother would scream as you walked towards the refrigerator.

Mimi passed away when I was eleven, and at the funeral my grandfather sobbed relentlessly. We hadn’t expected that. Five weeks later, Bompa passed away too, and, though it may sound cruel, an intense feeling of relief seemed to pervade the atmosphere at home afterwards.

Every once in awhile you can see the effect that being raised by angry, self-centered alcoholics has had on my mother. When she’s doing something quiet by herself and you catch her unawares, her face will often settle into a wounded expression that isn’t warranted by the task at hand. It makes you want to give her a hug.

As kids, she always made sure that we behaved respectfully towards our grandparents, but now that we’re older, she’s letting her guard down little by little. A few weeks ago at Christmas, we were all sitting around playing cards and drinking when she casually began another anecdote, as if the conversation had naturally taken that turn.

When Mimi and Bompa used to fight with each other, if Mimi really wanted to get Bompa mad, she’d say that she’d done their genealogies and discovered that Bompa’s side of the family was Jewish.

Everybody stopped playing cards to look at my mother.

“Bompa was Anti-Semitic?”

“Yeah. And Mimi.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” my sister said as she started dealing the next hand.

I imagine everyone at that moment was recalling a personal run-in they’d had with Mimi and Bompa. I thought of that stuffed pig. With the snowy fur. Its tutu missing, but the crumpled tiara still sewn jauntily to its head. I’d run into the pig earlier that day on the floor of the toy room that my parents maintain for the grandkids. At the time I'd noticed that some play-doh had gotten smooshed into a section of its fur, which I have to admit made me smile a little.

-EEK