Monday, October 25, 2010

Father's mother

She was my paternal grandmother. I must have seen her 5 times in all of my life. She died when I was about 8 (around the time my father stopped abusing me). I remember she smelled bad. She didn't keep a clean house. There was a wooden door at the end of hallway. She opened it and walked inside a small pantry that smelled like mould. A small light bulb that illuminated with a slightly bluish color showed what else was to be found in the pantry: cheese, herbs, big canisters, barrels and lots of spider webs. She took a pitcher full of a vodka-like alcohol and brought it into the house for my father. I begged her not to give him to drink anymore. He was already drunk and he was very mean when he was drunk. She laughed at me. My father abused me that night and the next morning, in a bed not far from the room she was sleeping in, which made me wonder if she knew and didn't stop him, or if she simply didn't care.
Before she died, she fell out of a tree and broke her spine and she was paralyzed for a year or so. She thought I was the devil and didn't want to speak to me, because I had probably told her what her son was doing to me. In her village, legend said she was into witchcraft. My father called women he was afraid of "witches". His mother probably didn't defend him from the fury his own father unleashed on him as a child. His father was very abusive and another legend has it that he slept with his oldest daughter and impregnated her, which is why she had to marry when she was only 15. My father's father died when I was 12. My father was very fake and fearful around him, acting like a 5 year old.

No comments:

Post a Comment