The Sentinels Wife
I believe I know where things went astray around here.
Remember, families with common names to this situation married into our family.
To keep the family name those folks were women, yet there are also married into kin who are men.
Well, unfortunately.
The last to take her turn - put her own spin into the works.
She was June born- A very clever Gemini.
* * *
I love my grandma dearly. She is my father’s mother and I know he loved her himself. I love her because; she is my grandmother - my father’s mother.
However, all my life I wondered why she was so dog gone mean and hateful to me especially, when no one else was about.
If I did not do, what she told me to do - she would whip me with a stitch full of leaves she would have me go cut. If the stitch was too short she would fuss about the switch being to short, while whipping me with it, and then make me go get another larger switch. Over and over again until - she was satisfied with a bigger switch or the redness of my skin.
She would make me do things that made no sense. She would tell me things that made no sense. Hurtful things - all along until she finally even graduated up to no sense hurtful things involving me being made to remove the lid from a roll boiling pressure cooker.
She would have me move things to cause granddaddy and daddy to become upset and to scold me or whip me. If I told them, she told me to do it - she would call me a liar and I probably got spanked for telling them that truth the first time. (I‘m a fast learner so, I never tried to claim my innocence again - to avoid getting an extra spanking and being called a liar.)
She would have me move things, while cleaning her house. She would give me things too, and then after my leaving she would tell everyone I stole those things. So, she named me a thief for following her personal (unknown to them) orders.
She began at an early age her attempts to brainwash me.
She would tell me things, say things to me I knew where wrong. However, I was left - there with her and had no choice but to stand, listen, and do whatever she wanted.
“Every thing that is wrong in this family is my fault. Everything.”
You name it - from the alcoholism to the abuse (of all the adults). All these little and terrible things were according to her (brainwashing) My Fault.
(* I am plumb shaking here, while writing this*)
It was my fault that my mom and dad fuss and fight.
It was my fault that my dad drank.
It was my fault this…
It was my fault that…
It was my fault that the mail lady was late.
“Every thing that is wrong in this family is my fault. Everything.”
This is what she would have you believe. This is what she taught me.
There were certain things, phrases that she would repeat to me about myself.
Her favorite and I think maybe even her first to me is:
“If you ever tell anyone, they won‘t believe you. They will believe me. They will believe anything I tell them.”
Next in line will be:
“You might be a pretty thing, but no one will ever love you.”
* * *
Oh Lord, My God - My head was so full her of crap - not to mention my heart broken and my soul sullied as well as my good name, since she told so many untrue things about me to any who would listen.
(Thank goodness, most knew her better than I did already. I suppose they never considered what she would really do when she was alone with me.)
I began reading self-help books when I was 13 years old.
* * *
Bless her heart.
She loved to pit one of her boys or any of us against the other.
I suppose if I could paint just one picture of her it would be that of a little girl standing toes close to an ant bed - with a stick in her hand - stirring the ant bed - screaming and crying because the ants are biting her. All the while, denying her responsibility of the deed.
* * *
Now, to more symbolic things that have just made some sense to me and its mind blowing to think that someone would go to such lengths.
So, bluntly - Before she died she had a surgeon remove her right eye for no reason. The aunt who was driving her back and forth happen to catch the surgeon, while grandma was being prepped for surgery and she asked him what was wrong with grandma’s eye and he said, “There is nothing wrong with her eye. She wants it out, I‘m taking it out.”
I thought about it and then I asked mom. She says the eye that was taken out was the right eye - that is what I think too.
Interesting, isn't it?
*shew*
(…actually, it‘s sickening…)