RB met my grandmother this weekend. She is Mumsie to me, Grand Mumsie to RB.
Mumsie lives in a small town outside of Little Rock. It's a nine hour drive straight through, which is not how it works with an infant. The town she lives in is an interesting one. At the last census, it had 2,700 citizens. In its day, it was a popular stop on the railroad. There's a bridal dress shop there called Low's, and many people would come to shop their beautiful dresses. Nowadays, Low's is still there, but farming is the main revenue stream for the area. My grandparents bought and worked at their farm for many, many years. She still lives in the house my mom grew up in, and where Jake and I would spend summers.
It's a bittersweet place for me. I don't remember a lot of my childhood. I'm not sure why, but it's just a fact of my life. I do remember the time I spent there. My mother's father, Mumsie's late husband, my grandfather, my Daddy-Oh, he was my favorite person. He was hard working man. I don't have a memory of him that doesn't involve him a little sweaty, having just come from doing some hard thing but you wouldn't have known it if he didn't say it. The way I remember him, he was happy. Genuinely happy in a way you don't see often. He would take Jake and I to the farm, where we'd fish in Lake Jake, which was a man-made pond stocked with catfish. This was a favorite past time. We'd fish, we'd catch, then we'd go home and he'd clean the fish. I would watch him both fascinated by the process and horrified at the gore. Mumsie would fry the fish, and we'd eat as a family every night we were there. He got a deep-fry and fried biscuits, and I still remember how delicious they were. He'd fry them, poke a hole in them, fill them with honey, and then I'd inhale them like a wild animal. No doubt I ate an offensive amount, but he let me because it made me happy, though I'm sure it also made me feel like shit later. He understood that sometimes you just need to do things that make you happy, regardless of the consequence.
It's interesting, though, because he had big reasons to be unhappy. Daddy-Oh was diagnosed with cancer long before I was born and fought it the entire time I knew him. I never knew a time he wasn't sick. I would cuddle with him and he would warn me not to touch his port because it was very tender. I'd accidentally bump it, but he wouldn't get mad or snap at me. He would just adjust himself to move it further from me but he wouldn't kick me out of his chair. He'd sneak me M&Ms before and after dinner when Mumsie wasn't looking (she would not support risking spoiling one's appetite). He died when I was in the sixth grade. I was looking through pictures while we were at her house and saw a few of him and my mom. I didn't really get it when I was little. He was sick, sure, but he'd always been sick. I never considered that sickness would steal him from us. My mom had to live with the truth of that reality every day for almost two decades. The day he passed, he was fully aware his time was coming to an end. If I recall correctly, he actually called my mom that day. I don't know if he told her outright what he was feeling, but I know he made sure she knew he loved her, and would always love her. The next day, Mumsie delivered the news. It was my first heartbreak, my first real heartbreak. My first confrontation with the fragility of life and cruelness that is our limited time here.
I can now look back and see more of the truth of it. Mumsie was his caretaker for that whole time. They were keeping the farm going, and they were fighting a bitter, unwinnable battle. He had chemo and radiation and I'm sure was so sick some days it seemed like he might never feel better. I was headstrong and I was mad. I was mad when he passed. I was mad and didn't know I was mad. I'd go to see her and I would be mad that he wasn't there. It wasn't fair. When is it ever? I lived in a vacuum and only knew my feelings.
Beau and Mumsie get along wonderfully. They can talk for an hour on the phone, back and forth about different things. She's loved him from the get-go. As for me, my grandmother and I have had an ambivalent relationship that started pretty much when I hit puberty. There have been ups, and there have been downs. I would describe it as a mountain range. We have taken each other to the icy peaks and we have spent time in the green valleys. We have been nice to each other and we have been contemptuous of each other. If she were to read this, I doubt she'd be surprised. We are both headstrong and we are both always right. We both know the correct way to do things even when we do them differently. I have not always made it easy to like me, but I've always felt that's a two way street. Through it all, we have always loved each other.
There's this school of thought now where people say you don't have to love someone just because they are your given family. I would beg to differ. I'm just not built that way. Even in our hardest moments, I have loved her. From where I sit, there has always been an understanding that we can fall apart but we will eventually fall back together. I've said that many times in my life. Families do fall apart. All the time. But they are absolutely capable of falling back together. I have seen it firsthand. It takes time, forgiveness, and change. I guess I'm just saying, the mountain range Mumsie and I exist in is vast and unending. It has no conditions. The love is a fact. It is science. All the things in between are unimportant when it comes down to it. I mean, I am human, and I struggle to live and let live. I get impatient and I get snippy. I am who I am. At the same time, she is who she is. We deserve to get to be who we are and know that we are unconditionally family.
We've lost a lot of people the last few years. Beau and I talk all the time abut how unfair it is that those people didn't get to meet our son. How close their time was to his coming into the world. If only they'd have been here. If only he'd been here sooner. If only, if only. If Daddy-Oh's passing was my first lesson on time, every loss thereafter has been a bitter reminder of it. It makes me realize how important it is to me that everyone who loves us and him gets an opportunity to meet him in person; to feel his weight and hear his laughs and see his smile, to listen to him talk and whine and burp and cry. It's important to me. I didn't think it was important when I was living for just myself. It's different now with him here.
Mumsie's birthday is this week. We had originally planned to visit her when we were in Oklahoma a few weeks back, but with everything that happened and our sudden move, we weren't able to make that happen. Beau and I decided we would come up this past weekend and spend time with her, and give her the opportunity to meet her great-grandson. We, or more Beau, drove up Friday. We left around noon. Here's the text I sent my parents describing the drive up: "If this drive were a football game, RB had an incredible first quarter. Solid start to the second quarter but got a little spicy toward the end. Absolutely shit third quarter - his performance tanked. Start to the fourth quarter was rough but seems to have ptfo so we are hopeful he will finish the game strong." If you're curious about the third quarter and what I would qualify as an 'absolutely shit performance' - well, he threw an absolute shit fit. I mean, he had a LOT of negative feedback. He got overtired and over-pissed off. He screamed for a solid two hours. We stopped the car and got him out of his seat, calmed him down, put him back in, and he'd start up again. He ate and we changed his diapers. There was nothing wrong, except in his opinion everything was wrong. He finally fell asleep and Beau and I sat in silence in the front seat, terrified he'd wake up again. We arrived without physical incident but emotionally we were wrecked.
We got into the hotel and he slept through the night. He actually woke up at 7:30, which is the latest he's ever slept. He was in a great mood when he got up like he hadn't spent many hours the day before bitching us out. We got up, got dressed, and headed over to Mumsie's house. She was waiting at the carport to meet us. She was so excited. It's the happiest I've seen her, maybe ever. RB loves her. She gave him a bottle and he slurped it down. He bounced in her lap and talked to her (in a much nicer tone than he'd talked to us the day before). She'd bought him books and stuffed animals, and she read him one. He helped turn the pages and watched her as she spoke.
Mumsie bought RB some bubbles. He's currently trying to figure out how to crawl. He can scoot backwards pretty well, but forward motion is harder to grasp. She had blankets ready on the floor for him to get on and start practicing. We blew bubbles and he was fascinated. He scooted all around and tried to catch the bubbles, and was beside himself when they were uncatchable. Beau cooked steaks for lunch and I found myself right back in the seat I always sat in, eating again as a family. RB had sweet potatoes and loved them. I gave him some of my baked potato, but it had pepper on it and he was offended by that. He was interested in my garlic bread and had a few bites of that. He thought that was delicious. That was actually the first time he'd shown interest in having a bite of my food, and he took a bite and successfully swallowed. He napped in Mumsie's room under one of her new split unit ACs, which are very nice. We had some in St Thomas and Beau really wants one for our room here, and I have a feeling being under hers will play a role in the one we'll get in the future.
We had to leave in the evening to take RB back to the hotel and let him get to sleep. Between the massive amount of things we now travel with for our baby and the fairly active train track Mumsie lives next to, we decided we would get a room while we were in town. When we checked in the night before, the woman at the front desk, Evelyn, recognized me from the last time we were in town. I had been five months pregnant then and we'd traveled for my uncle's funeral. He passed in a car accident last summer. She'd recognized me because she knows my mom and said I looked just like her. She recognized me again this trip. She'd heard I'd had a baby and we chatted for a bit. I booked one of the last rooms they had, which I was surprised to hear because I wouldn't have expected a hotel in that town to be booked anywhere near capacity. Beau and I took RB up to the room and were shocked to find we had booked a suite. Beau thinks Evelyn did us a solid and put us in the suite on purpose. I wouldn't be surprised. She is a very sweet woman.
Anyway, we took RB back to the hotel and got him to sleep. We hung out for a bit and I fell asleep at a beautifully early 9:30pm. We got up the next day with the plan to put on our Sunday best and accompany Mumsie to church. It's a very southern thing, maybe, but going to church Sunday morning is a very social affair. We'd done the math and had planned to hit the road after church so we could get back on the road at a good time and be home at a reasonable time. We met so many of Mumsie's friends, and she was so delighted to introduce us. I told Beau later she would've made a great politician, the way she commanded the room, made the rounds, and knew everyone on a first name basis even though there were many names to remember. She was so proud. I'm not sure I've ever seen her so proud. We shook many hands and shared smiles.
We sat down on a pew and RB decided he would give everyone a piece of his mind, though it was all good things he said. Mumsie leaned over before the service and whispered to me that when the organs played, RB would be amazed. She was right. They started and he was very interested, and kept looking around to see where that sound was coming from. He gazed at the stain glass that surrounded us in amazement. He headbutted me in the chest quite a few times. Beau was worried the kid was going to split my lip if he caught me just right. RB is a shooting star, and sometimes that means he flies in bright but burns out quickly. It became pretty apparent he was getting sleepy, and with that would come the fussing because it was not an environment for sleep. Mumsie leaned over and suggested we go ahead and sneak out. She cared more about him being comfortable than anything else. We kissed and said our goodbyes. We got RB to the car and I changed his diaper. I swear, I am like a one-woman pit crew when it comes to changing diapers in the car. I have gotten very adept at it in the past few weeks. After that, we were on the road. He was asleep within minutes of us taking off.
Once he woke up, I sat in the back with RB for the majority of the trip. We played and laughed, and we watched a lot of Miss Rachel. If you don't know who Miss Rachel is, you best get educated, because RB loves her and so do we. She is the sole reason we only had fifteen minutes of crying on the drive back. There were screeches, sure, but they were happy screeches. Beau and I were driving back to Lake Jackson and slowly to the brink of insanity listening to songs about where our eyes, nose, and toes are located, but whatever - I'd rather have the Bubblegum song stuck in my head for the next week than listen to our guy berate us because he is a baby and doesn't have the patience for long road trips.
We made it back to Lake Jackson, and I dropped off Beau at his aunt and uncle's, Sherri and John, house to pick up Hap. Hap couldn't accompany us to Arkansas, so he had a little weekend getaway of his own. He was very good, and we are very proud. You should recognize Sherri and John from other stories. They continue to come through for us. They loved on Hap all weekend. Sherri sent Beau and I a number of pictures throughout the time he was there of him cuddling with her, with John, and on the bed he decided was his in their guestroom. Hap was all wiggles when Beau got him, and I headed home while they hung out for a minute to get RB in bed. It took a few minutes but he finally relented and went to sleep. I went outside to see Hap and we got some zoomies in. It was a wonderful reunion. Then Beau and I collapsed on the couch, happy with our weekend and totally wiped from travel.
I'm grateful for this weekend. I'm grateful for my husband driving me and our son 9+ hours each way so he could meet my grandmother. I'm grateful for the great company, the clear love she has for him. Beau told me she was delighted when I played with RB. He said that may have been one of her favorite parts of our whole visit.
Family is family, always and forever. I'm glad RB now knows another part of his.
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