I had three.
Mary was
the one my father never met. Buried in
Spokane.
Laura was a
well-meaning stranger. A
nurse.
Dad never knew the score until he hit
fifth grade. Following a parent-teacher conference, his classroom teacher hit him with, "So - you're
stephcild," or something equally wickedly
lame.
Blended families go
under the rug.
Laura died this
summer. I hadn't seen her in ten years, not since my
grandfather's funeral. She had
cancer.
Laura bought me a
Pound Puppy one year for
Christmas. I named it
Lady. Then she had a
fight with my Dad and the presents stopped coming.
Laura was a
chain smoker.
Delna's my
last surviving grandparent. Turned 75 a couple of days ago, and still kicking,
brand-new artificial hip notwithstanding. I visited her is the hospital when she had the
inferior organic hip replaced this summer. I realized I had never had occasion to visit her in the
hospital before, but I probably would once more.
She came to visit me a few weeks after
I left for school. We saw
American Beauty, and she said it was
trash.
When I was little I would throw all my belongings in a
picnic basket and head to the
farm to visit
Grandma and Grandpa. I would go to
church with her, and if nothing was doing on the farm,
Grandpa would join.
I got bored easily in church. Grandma would pull a little
Tupperware container full of
trail mix out of her purse and slide it across the
pew. This kept me from noticing the
boy in the row in front of me, who was wearing
girls' dress shoes, complete with
bow ties.