Grandma was born. I’d say when but now I can’t remember and she’s sleeping so I can’t ask her. There were fifteen or seventeen people in the family. Grandma was very curious and roamed around the house like a tiny security guard. When she was two years old she got bored being at home all day and decided to start school. She walked over to the schoolhouse by herself. The teacher let her stay. Her favourite thing to do in school was race for her shoes. All the kids raced for their shoes and tried to get them on first, which was how you won the game. Grandma was too short and fat to keep up with the other kids, who were five years old not two years old, and she didn’t even know how to put her shoes on anyway or tie them up. Most of the time she didn’t even make it to the pile of shoes because she’d trip or collapse in a heap laughing. She loved that game so much. She still talks about it almost once a month. A lot of the kids in her family started to die and eventually there were only seven left. Now they’re all dead except for Grandma. Grandma took me to the graveyard where her six brothers and sisters who were babies when they died are buried in a row that goes from one end of the graveyard to the other. I try to remember all their names when I can’t sleep. One of them was Minty. If I have a baby I’ll call it Minty even if it’s a boy. Minty will be Gord’s niece or nephew. Grandma’s mom and dad were buried in front of the babies. They have to share a tombstone.
When Grandma was a kid, her friend came over and they accidentally lit the kitchen on fire. Grandma’s dad sat in the living room visiting with his brother, and his brother said hey, I think I smell smoke, and Grandma’s dad said oh, they’ll work it out. Grandma and her friend put the fire out. Afterwards, her dad asked her if she’d learned something. When Grandma was fourteen her dad let her take his car and drive to America to visit her aunt and uncle and bring them a cake. Grandma’s mom didn’t think it was a good idea but she was always really tired from having babies and from being very sad and up all night praying, so she couldn’t do anything about it. Grandma’s mom died when Grandma was fifteen years old and it took Grandma forty years to forgive her mom for dying. She didn’t know that she was so angry at her mom for dying until she was hypnotized by a friend and found that out. She was also very angry at and fearful of one of her brothers. She felt so much better after finding that out. Then, when Grandma was sixteen, her dad had a stroke and lay in bed paralyzed for nine years until his arm fused onto his chest from never moving it.
Grandma’s older sisters were getting married and having children like Lou and Ken. And many, many, many other ones. So her older brothers sent her away to an awful boarding school in the city where she sometimes wouldn’t wear the uniform because she didn’t feel like it. She was so lonely she thought about throwing herself into the river. One day she stood on the Disraeli Bridge and thought about it. But, right in that moment, a person walked towards her. Was it Willit Braun? I asked her. No, she said, if it had been Willit Braun she would definitely have thrown herself into the river. But that was a half-joke. Grandma jokes all the time and if she’s being serious she half-jokes. One day the principal of the school sent her home for not wearing the uniform, and when she got back to the house where she was living with an old lady and another boarder the door was locked and she didn’t have a key, so she walked in thirty-below weather while her legs were freezing all the way downtown to call her older brother, who came to take her home, at least for the weekend.
After that her brothers sent her to America to be a maid and to go to Bible school. She was so lonely again. And she was so mad at her mom for dying, even though it was irrational to be angry. She couldn’t believe how quickly the American’s house got messy right after she’d cleaned the whole thing from top to bottom. She started not caring so much about cleaning it. She wished she hadn’t cleaned it so well in the beginning because then the American wanted it to be like that every time. After a while she returned home and took her first offer of love, which was from Grandpa, and got married to him. He was young then, like her. He was so skinny that they weighed the same. Grandma had a dream of them becoming circus performers together. She really wanted to wear skimpy little outfits that caught the light and sparkled while she flew through the air on a trapeze or rode on the back of a horse standing up. Or stood on Grandpa’s shoulders. But Grandpa wasn’t like that. The first time Grandma went driving with Grandpa she noticed how cautious he was and how he followed all the rules. It made her think maybe he wasn’t the right guy for her. She really liked to drive fast and break rules. She said that was the only thing that concerned her about Grandpa. Even when she found his lifetime supply of anti-depressants, she wasn’t worried, but the way he drove so slowly and cautiously really made her wonder about their future together. Then she decided she had to work at not being bothered by that because she loved him, period.