Yesterday, I Cried_ Celebrating the Lessons of Living and Loving - Iyanla Vanzant [20]
It was many, many years later before someone had the decency to explain to Rhonda that the reason all the people had come to the house, eaten in the front room, and patted her on the head was because her mother had died. She didn’t remember the funeral, barely remembered her mother; yet somehow, she’d kept a flower from her mother’s casket. Her dead mother’s casket. She kept it in a Bible that she had won at Sunday school for memorizing and reciting, in order, the sixty-six books of the Bible. She remembered winning the Bible more than the flower in the Bible, because the day she won it, Grandma almost smiled at her. Not quite, but almost.
Grandma, Rhonda, and Rhonda’s brother, Ray, lived in a four-story walkup on a busy street in Brooklyn, New York. Although Daddy was supposed to be living there with them, he actually just stopped by every now and then. Daddy was a numbers runner. He was one of the biggest numbers runners in the neighborhood. Rhonda could count on seeing him at least twice a day; once when he came to figure up his morning numbers sheet, and again when he came to figure up his evening numbers sheet. The rest of the time, Daddy left Rhonda alone with Grandma.
Grandma, Daddy’s mother, was a big lady, five feet, ten inches tall, with a large, solid frame. Grandma had a beautiful full head of salt-and-pepper hair and chiseled features and deepset eyes. Grandma never wore fancy or stylish clothes, but she would put on a little shiny pink lipstick when she was going to church. There was something about Grandma’s face that was soft and strikingly beautiful in a cold and distant way. If you looked at her quickly, before she opened her mouth to speak, you would almost believe that Grandma was gentle, loving, and nurturing. It was this side of Grandma that Rhonda remembers only vaguely.
What Rhonda remembers clearly and will never forget about Grandma is her large breasts, big feet, and her huge, gnarled hands. On the days when she didn’t appear strikingly beautiful, Grandma was wickedly mean. She’d squint those beady, intense little eyes as she hissed or screamed a command, letting Rhonda know it was time to get out of the way.
Rhonda used to run from Grandma, but she always came to a screeching halt at the door that led to the front room. Rather than run in there and risk breaking something, she would turn, head for the bedroom, and dive under the bed. Rhonda had enough sense to know that she had to do everything in her power to get away when Grandma was upset. She had to first tire her out. If she didn’t, the power and strength of those huge hands would leave a lasting impression on some part of Rhonda’s anatomy. If she could get away for just a few minutes, giving Grandma time to calm down, she would have a chance of surviving. As children, we learn a great deal about our ability to survive and get by in life by the way we are treated. It is ultimately our ability to withstand or understand the treatment we receive as children that determines what we think about ourselves as adults.
When Grandma wasn’t being cruel, mean, angry, or violent, she was, at best, cool. Grandma never showed emotion, unless Rhonda’s brother was somehow involved in the situation. She hardly ever smiled unless she was smiling at Rhonda’s brother. She would laugh at Jack Benny or Amos and Andy on television, but that didn’t really count. The only way for you to know that she was pleased, not angry with you, was when she would stare, poker-faced, in your direction and nod her head in the “yes” gesture. Grandma was Rhonda’s primary caretaker after her mother’s death. In a very cold and overt way, Grandma taught Rhonda her first lessons about mothers and mothering, as well as almost everything she believed to be true about herself.
Like most women of her era and race,