There is a certain emptiness that comes over me a week or so before this day. Each year, instead of growing smaller, it seems to increase in size and rattles my heart.
I had good grand parents; the best. I had a best friend, she still is. I grew up with love and understanding for all, thanks to my mom and dad. Every January, just after my brother's birthday, my grand mother and I would argue.
It always started out with a simple and honest argument and eventually grew into a verbal altercation followed by tears and an interesting "truce".
My best friend is black, her family was like my family. All her brothers were my brothers, her uncle was my uncle, her mother was an amazing mother, my mother. Her father was like my father and very much like my dad. She feels the same about my "white" family. Her grand mother was just like mine, she loved me and she took care of me. I was over often, stayed nights, weekends, holidays. Her family, even her extended family took me traveling, taught me to ski, took me everywhere with them.
My grand mother was a non-admittedly racist bigot. I never let her meet my best friend. Never. Every year I'd celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.'s words, actions and triumphs and failures. Every year, maybe because I was so young, I tried to turn my grand mother around. I tried and failed so many times it hurt. It still hurts.
She saw him and everything about him differently. "He was a trouble maker", "He got what he deserved", "I don't hate them all". Sheesh, it brings up tears just typing this out. "I know a few of them, they aren't all bad". Oh, that hurt so much!
For most of my life, I refused to refer to anyone by race or colour or supposed nationality. I had my reasons.
After each argument, neither side won. I loved my gram so deeply and new she loved me that I had no choice, my heart had no choice but to stop. I would drop the argument, not letting her think I was agreeing, just letting her know I did not agree.
My friend only recently found out, last year. I had wanted to hide this from her and had done so for over thirty years. I had told her that I was sorry she never got to meet my grand parents and she then asked me why. What are you going to do?? Tell the truth. I don't think she was hurt by it but I was hurt knowing that she knew such hate/fear/misinformation? existed. No idea what made me think she didn't already know.
My gram was amazing, to my brother and to me. We were lucky kids. I'm not sure what made me think I could change anyone, let alone someone so adamant about something that made zero sense to me. But, I do have an idea why. These arguments often led to other subjects such as "why they never gave 'the blacks' that fenced-off land in the middle of nowhere, so they could be free there'. Oh, don't act surprised, I can't be the only one with a racist in the family! This was a good one, "I know three and all of them are on welfare." *breath, Minkey, breath*
It was only difficult almost all of the time, to "forget" and to try to "forgive". I am honestly not there yet. I've been working towards forgiveness for most of my life and it is not as tough as forgetting. It is January, gram has been dead for a long time, I still have mental re-enactments of our arguments. I don't get it. I've tried and it doesn't come to me.
When my grand mother died, she held on to her hate for as long as she could. On the last day of her life, after years of being the most cruel m-i-l any mother-in-law could ever be to anyone, she apologized to my mom. She held her hand and cried and sincerely, looked into her eyes and told her all the things she wish she hadn't done and what she wish she had done. I wish she changed in other ways too. I wish she would have never held the hate that welled up each January. I like to think that is what happened, not because I had made such ridiculous attempts at changing her, but because she saw something in herself and the world that led her to a change.
I'm next. I am the one who has to change. My goal is to finalize my forgiveness so I can move on to forgetting. I don't like to think that racism should be forgotten because we need to know how the world was so we can grow, ever forward, ever more loving and learning with an opening of our hearts. But, in this case, I do want to forget. I think that is a true forgiveness, forgetting the wrong as if it never happened.
So, even though my remembering has brought tears of emotional sadness, I'm going to keep trying to let it go. I won't pretend it wasn't, I'll just see her as being the loving gram I was blessed to have.
Phew! That took a lot of energy!! Thanks for being here so I could get this out and off of my chest. I know my story isn't gargantuan but it was for me and somehow still is.