Grandma Bernadine

Yesterday, I wrote about my dad’s mother, Grandma Vera.  Today I am about to write about my mom’s mother.  I don’t even know her name, partly because I never actually knew her. 

The content of this post is depressing, but it’s the truth.  I will move on to happier topics ASAP, I promise!

My Grandmother Bernadine (I just found her name through a strategic Google search) was not a happy person.  Her family had emigrated to the US from France, via Canada.  Her most noteworthy recollection from her own childhood was of her own mother attempting to sell her to strangers.  I suspect that’s not exactly what happened, but I’ll get into that another time.  She married my grandfather, who had been abandoned by his own parents and raised by his grandparents.

My grandfather was an alcoholic.  So was Bernadine.  Bernadine spent a lot of time drunk, passed out on the couch.  She also spent a lot of time standing in the kitchen, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, and repeatedly banging her fist against her thigh.  Other times she was prone to various types of drama, although I’m sure I never heard about most of it.  What I did hear is that she once drowned a cat in the toilet in a drunken rage.  I am sorry to even include that, but it’s the sad truth.  Bernadine and her husband fought…a lot.  A gun was fired in the house on at least one occasion.  Some of the fights managed to spill out into the front yard.

At one point Bernadine managed to get into the car that was parked in the driveway and locked the doors.  My grandfather climbed on top of the car and banged on it with his fists.  This is the kind of chaos, humiliation, and fear my mother grew up with.

After many years of marriage, raising four children, and witnessing the arrival of a number of grandchildren, Bernadine killed herself.  I have no idea what finally sent her over the edge.  I’ve always been too afraid to ask many questions about her.  Apparently she died the year I was born.  What I do know is that I grew up with her ghost, so to speak.  I was born to a woman whose own mother had just killed (or was just about to kill) herself.  She, in subtle and indirect ways, has been a huge part of my life.

Crazy Women in my Family…or Were They Just Feminists?

I can’t write about life without writing about mental health…and I can’t write about mental health without writing about my parents…and their parents…

Although I had three grandmothers, the two crazy ones (of course!) were blood-related.  I’ll talk about my step-grandma last because she was normal and by the time I get to her, the mood will need some lightening up.

I’ll start by telling you what little I know about my paternal grandmother, “Grandma Vera.”  By the time I was old enough to develop any memories of her, she was a small, feeble woman and her boobs hung down past her waist (sorry, I’m just sharing what I remember!).  Since she had trouble getting around, my brother and I would stay with her on the weekends to help out.  I was in elementary school at the time.  She didn’t like us sleeping in the same room, but we did anyway.

The way it was explained to us was that she used to be a teacher in a juvenile detention home and suspected only the worst from children.  At some point, I asked my parents what Grandma Vera was like when she was younger.  Apparently, when she was younger she weighed somewhere between 300 and 400 lbs.  I was later quite relieved to realize that’s why her boobs were so long (she shrunk, but her skin didn’t).  For years, I had been afraid that’s what my boobs would like like when I got old.

Grandma Vera drove around in a flashy pink convertible and didn’t allow her children to call her “mom”; instead, they had to address her by her first name.  She was not known for being nurturing.  She didn’t seem to care for children, although she had 6 of them.  Life must have sucked before birth control…and career options.  God knows she didn’t go into teaching because she loved children.  It must have been her only option.

My dad recalls, with some resentment, how Vera pampered his sisters, but not the boys in the family.  The boys barely had enough clothes between them to get dressed in the morning.  My father went through high school with a single pair of jeans and a missing front tooth while his sisters wore dresses and took piano lessons.  This hurt my father, but he never seemed to hold it against her.  He was always there for her in her final years.

One cool thing I remember about my grandma…she taught me to read before I learned in school.  I remember how exciting it was to learn to read.