To continue the story of my mother and those surrounding her, I'll tell you a little about my grandfather, Morris. I was 14 or 15 when he died. (April Fool's Day - I came home from school to have my dad greet me in the yard. He was supposed to be at work and I tried really hard to make him tell me he was doing a sick April Fool's Day joke. I went to my favorite place in the woods behind our house and climbed my favorite tree and cried my heart out. The area was covered in wisteria and to this day I can remember the calm that came over me as I cried and prayed. It was probably the only time before I joined the church that I was sure of God's existence. I didn't really know about the Holy Ghost but I sure recognized the feeling of comfort and love that I was enveloped inside.) He had been really sick with cancer and I had been able to be with him a lot that last 9 months or so because he was in the hospital on the ward that my mother worked as a ward secretary. I had been a candy striper during the summer and they assigned me to Ward J whenever possible. Being with him when my grandmother wasn't around showed an entirely different person to me.
He had had stomach problems and had had surgery that removed about 3/4 of his stomach. He worked in the cotton mill all day and would come home and would sit in his favorite chair in front of the TV and drink a beer. About half a beer and he would be drunk. He was a gentle and sweet drunk, not scary at all. I'm not making excuses for him but if I had had to listen to Elsie tell me all the things I did wrong and how pitiful I was - well, that beer doesn't sound too bad, does it? It doesn't excuse him from being responsible for the things that went on in his house. He should have stood up to Elsie and took control. He just wasn't strong enough and would rather escape in oblivion so he could live down to her expectations. When I was young, I never liked to greet Papa because he smelled funny and always had stubble on his face and it hurt to hug him.
One memory that I will always have that showed their strange marriage is of when I broke my elbow. I was 13 and the night before we left for vacation at the beach I miscalculated while on the playground near our house and landed hard. A friend that lived next to the park drove me home very slowly while, Scott ran home to tell Mom and Dad. (He was pale as a ghost. That was also one of the things that stand out because I had never seen anyone do that before.) I had just eaten dinner so the surgery to put my elbow back together would be the next morning. That Fourth of July in the hospital was NOT the way to spend a vacation.
The day after surgery I had spoken to my parents on the phone and found out my grandparents were at the house. The hospital is only a few blocks away so when Papa said that he would come visit me, I was beyond excited. I had already developed a relationship with him and he was going to get to be the one visiting me instead of the other way around. So of course Mama Ferguson said they would not go, she wanted to go home and didn't want to take the time to go to the hospital. I heard the discussion so I know what was said. Anyway, for once he stood up to her, kinda. They came to the hospital on their way home and waved at me from under my window. He blew me a kiss and she glared. Just the fact that we called him Papa and she was Mama Ferguson speaks volumes, doesn't it?
I might as well tell you the story of how she became Mama Ferguson. Elsie wanted to be called Mama. (I remember telling Dad that she couldn't be Mama because we already had a Mama.) That's what everyone called my Dad's mother and there was no way Elsie could have that honor. So we batted around a few names while at her house one day. Boy, do I remember the reaction she had when we suggested Mammy! She was determined to reject every name because she was a controlling witch. She would only settle for Mama. So when Mom said, "Well, I guess they can either not call you anything or they can call you Mama Ferguson.", we latched onto it. She did not like it and would cringe whenever we used it - for years! I was intimidated by her and was content to not call her anything, (which she didn't like either.) Later as I got older and a little bolder, Mom and Dad were discussing how Elsie didn't like to be called Mama Ferguson. Dad admitted that he enjoyed the fact she didn't like it. A light bulb went off in my brain and I realized it was a simple way to get back at her for all the mean things she did to Mom. She eventually got used to it. The down side was that whenever we had to differentiate between my grandmothers we had to call Dad's mother Mama Ferrell. Mama - the real one - didn't care. She was smart enough to know that she was our real grandmother and that we had to add the last names because the other grandmother was petty and controlling.
In reading this you may think that I hated Mama Ferguson. Not so. Most of my childhood I was afraid of her. When we lived on Ashe Street, Scott and I were sure that the woman that lived upstairs was a real witch. I'm not sure when it happened but somewhere along the way we kinda decided that Mama Ferguson was a witch too. When I got older I recognized her as a woman that I was not fond of but had to be with because it mattered to Mom. It was only after I joined the church and found that I needed to forgive her for being the way she was that I really came to terms with her. As an adult, I realized that I should feel sorry for her. Look at all that she missed by hurting all those around her. She had "favorites" throughout her life and did little things that hurt Mom, over and over. Mom wanted to have her mother love her and even though Elsie changed after Papa died and she spent more time with Mom and Dad - I'm not sure Elsie was capable of loving. She did redeem herself in my eyes when she started visiting Mom more and started going fishing at the coast with Mom and Dad. She was never a loving mother to Mom but she did make Mom feel better.
No comments:
Post a Comment