MOTHERS AND GRANDMOTHERS

My grandmother was a complex woman. We had a close relationship, and in her later years, she would draw pictures for me on her old IBM computer and tell me stories that went along with them. Detailed renderings of the dunes of Amagansett, the small buildings of our long-gone family compound, seagulls, grasses, and her as a young girl. One of her favorite stories was about a house in the compound that washed up Atlantic Avenue during the ’38 hurricane and was then towed up the hill and down to our family plot (Miller Land) in Springs (which back then stretched from Louse Point down Old Stone Highway, up to about Neck Path). The house in question was her childhood home after the hurricane, the place of many rumored tragedies, and it remains there to this day, although no longer in the family.

In the years since her death, when I’ve mentioned her story to other relatives, I’ve been told that it wasn’t true. I was told, yes, our family compound was damaged beyond repair, yes, they moved to the house in Springs, yes, my uncle Milton lost his boat and traps and everything he needed to fish, and yes, his home on Meeting House Lane lost its roof, but the other parts were denied. Which left me to wonder, did they just not know about it, were they not listening, or was it a fantasy that my grandmother couldn’t separate from reality?

When I say Eleanor was quirky, that’s assuredly an understatement. From her polyester slacks to her hand-knit cardigans, her glasses, lipstick, curtains, furniture, wall-to-wall carpets, and bedding, everything in her life was a different shade of pink. After moving to Florida, she collected hyper-realistic baby dolls and designated an entire room in her double-wide trailer to them. She cried at the drop of a hat—happy, sad, surprised, proud, scared, lonely, it didn’t matter, the tears were coming. But no matter how out of touch with reality she was, I never saw her as anything less than perfect. She loved me, probably more than anyone back then, so I didn’t care about her quirks. But I did wonder how someone could end up that way.

Sometimes, when we go through things that derail our perception of the world, we develop an alternate reality as a coping mechanism. Eleanor never forgave her mother, Florence, for constantly leaving her alone with her father in that little house in Springs, the one that may or may not have washed down Atlantic Avenue. Florence claimed her husband was a ‘pervert’ and wouldn’t leave her alone, so she’d go out ‘galivanting’ around town and would leave little Eleanor alone with her father. I don’t need to dig any deeper; that’s enough for me to come to my own conclusions about why Eleanor hated her mother, and how she became the way she was.

Florence gave birth to a stillborn child in the dead of winter in that same little house, around 1940. The ground was frozen solid, and they couldn’t bury him until it thawed, so they wrapped his tiny body in a blanket and placed him in the sideboard until spring. She was later diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder. She was a fast-talking, fast-driving, unpredictable force of nature who developed a much stronger relationship with her granddaughter (my mother) than she had with her daughter (Eleanor). She saw my mother as a second chance to do the right thing, and my mother adored her Nana Flo to death. My mother didn’t have the same love for her mother, not even close.

Eleanor made many questionable decisions during her adult life, many at the expense of her own children’s mental and physical health, which is why she showed me so much love. I was to Eleanor as my mother was to Florence. A second chance, a new beginning, after making astronomical mistakes the first time around. I spent summers at Cedar Point Park in a small trailer with Eleanor, my grandfather (the park ranger) and my brother. The trailer smelled like Pine Sol, True cigarettes, and aftershave. We would go crabbing from rowboats, then steam them over an open fire. We’d walk to the beach and trespass on the lighthouse, then I’d watch her gracefully swim laps with her bathing cap on. We’d feed chipmunks peanuts out of our hands and go birdwatching. We would hunt for owl pellets and pull them apart to reveal tiny mouse bones inside. She read Watership Down to me as I lay with my head in her lap. We would eat Grasshopper ice cream bars for dinner, and she’d let me sit on her lap and steer her Cadillac around Northwest Woods. She had never done things like this with her own kids, and I had never done them with my own mother. What we had was sacred.

We didn’t speak directly of tragedies. Her stories were of happy times. Uncles with lobster traps and vats of melted butter at Lazy Point, recipes for beachplum jelly (the best in the world), and growing up on the beach, free and happy—yet there were always tears forming at the corners of her eyes, which made no sense to me back then, yet makes perfect sense to me now.

Gram, wherever you are, you are forgiven, you are loved, you never deserved the things you endured as a child. Thank you for my most cherished childhood memories, and all the stories you told (no matter if they were true or embellished by the rose-colored lenses you saw the world through). You did the best you could with what you had, you were one-of-a-kind, and I love you forever.