My Granny Bernadette has always been the “Rock” of her Family.
When she was a little girl, she was the only one who was forced to do chores around the house. She helped her mother and father support her sisters, in other words. When her husband came back from the war permanently disabled, she took care of him. And when he died at a young age, she worked in a factory and raised three kids by herself. She helped to support those kids until well into their adult years, as well. And she supported me and my brother, her grand-children, by allowing us to live with her during our high school days. She also supported me again when I had my nervous breakdown, by allowing me to live with her, rest, and recuperate in a “safe” environment, far from the “madding crowd” if you will. This despite all the stress I caused with my “aberrant” behavior. I don’t know what I would have done without my Granny Bernadette. I don’t think any of us do. Sure, she could be cantankerous at times. But she always had our best interests at heart.
I remember she tried to make us better people. She would host special evenings she called “manners night” where she tried to teach us various table manners and other customary behaviors. I don’t remember any of their contents however, and I am today an absolute boor in almost all my interactions with others. I’m a sloppy eater, rude, inconsiderate, and disrespectful. I have learned nothing from my Granny Bernadette’s wisdom in this regard. It’s a shame, and what’s more, it’s an even bigger shame because I consider myself to be beyond redemption and don’t really worry about it all that much.
She absolutely detested my other Granny, Granny Mabel, because she was so stingy and tended to pester you about whatever nagging concern she had at the moment. Granny Mabel always had immense amounts of disrespect for Dad (justified, by my view) and Granny Bernadette wouldn’t tolerate it. She told Granny Mabel off on multiple occasions, though I never witnessed them. I remember Granny Bernadette talking about her, she would always describe with disgusted amusement how Granny Mabel would wander away when it came time to pay the check at a restaurant.
Granny Bernadette usually hated to go many places, and she had few friends outside her family. She was, now that I think about it, a rather anti-social person. It just seemed like she never cared to put the time into developing much of a life. From what I knew of her, she spent most of her days just doing chores, cooking, and watching television. Not much of an existence, but am I really that much better? Substitute a computer for a television and I’m basically the same person.
It’s a sad state that Granny Bernadette is in today, suffering from blindness, difficulty walking, and mild dementia. And while she has a permanent live-in caretaker in the form of her emotionally-distressed Daughter, she’s not the best choice because my Aunt likes to stay up all night and lay in bed all day. Bernadette just spends a lot of her time just laying in bed these days, completely awake. That’s the way it seemed the last time I was at her house, anyway.