By Mark H. Russ
After five years of arguing, non-stop drama, apologetic late-night phone calls and breaking up to make up, the relationship was over. I can’t say that I am upset, to be quite frank, but I am glad that it’s over. Relationships are a distraction. Between being a full-time student and full-time employment, I have enough to keep me busy.
Still, this hurts so badly. I remember someone, I think that it was Maria Shriver, saying that when a relationship ends it’s like the death of a dream. That is how I feel right now. It’s as if I just lost a family member, a close aunt or an uncle. I still have to get through the rest of this semester, I have to get through the next semester, and I also have to figure out what I want to do with my life following graduation.
I am so grateful to be in college, living my dream every single day, but right now I am mentally exhausted, depleted of all physical energy, and emotionally vulnerable. At this moment, I don’t know how I am going to get through the next minute, the next hour, or the next day, let alone the next six months. I want to give up. Then I remember my grandmother.
During my childhood, my parents worked a lot. As a result, I spent a significant amount of time with my grandmother. My grandmother’s house was my safe haven. It was the place where I never felt judged. I always felt loved, my opinion was always valued and expected, and I could always count on my grandmother’s wisdom, encouragement, and sincere warmth.
I remember soaking in my grandmother’s king-sized bathtub after a long week at school or a track meet, and all of my problems going down the drain along with the old bath water.
I remember my grandmother sitting at the table, after a long day of work, balancing her checkbook, meticulously going through the mail, and teaching me the importance of maintaining good credit, paying my bills on time, and always keeping an eye on my money.
I can still see my grandmother in her huge yellow kitchen. She would be bellied up to the stove making all of my favorites for breakfast. Fried potatoes with onions and green peppers, home-made biscuits with strawberry preserves, thick cured slices of bacon, scrambled eggs fried hard, and orange juice with pulp. Back then I didn’t care about my weight. I ate what I wanted to, as much as I wanted to. Now, like most adults, I worry about my weight and everything else.
The spacious parlor with its large oak sliding doors, and Oriental rug that covered the entire floor. It was full of oversized furniture and the handmade desk that her father gave to her, and my grandmother promised would be passed down to me. Grandma would entertain in this room almost every Sunday after church. I would be called on to recite, without error, the 23rd Psalm while the pastor and my Sunday school teacher looked on with pride.
I would sleep in the back bedroom, and I remember that it always had freshly laundered sheets and smelled like vanilla. My grandmother kept a large bookshelf full of books .The classics, such Oliver Twist, Pride and Prejudice, Anna Karenina, and To Kill a Mockingbird. She also had more contemporary works such as Waiting to Exhale, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and the autobiographies of Tina Turner and Diana Ross.
I would spend hours reading, and re-reading these books. Paying attention to the way that people told a story, and learning at a young age that everyone, regardless of differences in background, religion, or socioeconomic status, endured great pain and hardship in their lives. My love of reading, writing, and learning was developed in that bedroom and nurtured by my grandmother.
There was only one television in the entire house, and as this was the case, I watched whatever my grandmother wanted to watch until she went to bed. We always watched the news. She was also a fan of the news programs anchored by Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer and it was also here, in her living room, that my intellectual curiosity was developed and nourished. What we watched most of the time was old movies.
I remember countless Friday and Saturday evenings watching the Turner Classic Movie network. My grandmother’s favorite movies became my favorite movies. Mildred Pierce starring Joan Crawford, Auntie Mame starring Rosalind Russell, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof starring the incomparable Elizabeth Taylor. All women with a determined spirit, fierce independence, and great fortitude
My favorite however, then and now, was Gone with the Wind.
Gone with the Wind, the story of Scarlett O’Hara. The daughter of a wealthy plantation owner who survives the Civil War, subsequent poverty, the death of both of her parents and a daughter, along with the dreams of the old South. She marries three times, two end in the deaths of her husbands, the third, which she inevitably realizes to be her true love, ends as a result of her not recognizing the adoration that he carried for her throughout their tempestuous relationship.
At the conclusion of the movie she resolves to return to her family home, to Tara, the plantation that she grew up on, the land where she gets her strength. Scarlett, regardless of what insurmountable odds that she is faced with, never admits defeat. She will return to Tara, and figure out how to pick up the pieces, pull herself together, and move on with her life.
At that moment it hits me. My grandmother’s house is my Tara. My grandmother’s house is the place that has helped to create the person that I am today, for better or worse. It is the one place that I can return to when the calamitous world becomes too much. I can lick my wounds and gather my bearings.
I call my grandmother and ask her if I can come home for a few days. My grandmother, being the loving compassionate woman that she is, says yes.
I go to my bedroom and begin to pack my bags. Yes, I will go to my grandmother’s house. I will sleep in that queen-sized bed, and my troubles will melt into her feather down comforter. I will soak in her king-sized bath tub, and all of my worries and insecurities will wash down the drain the way that they used to when I was a child, at least for the moment. I’ll sit at her mahogany table and eat home-cooked meals until I feel full and satisfied. I’ll watch Diane Sawyer on the nightly news, Barbara Walters on The View, battle my grandmother during “Jeopardy”, and hopefully, catch an old movie, and eat popcorn and drink regular Pepsi not diet. I’ll recharge my battery, and I will emerge, ready to conquer the world.
I realize that in life there will always be challenges, but I know that I am stronger than I feel at this moment. My grandmother with her boundless energy and eternal wisdom will help me figure all of this out. I can’t allow myself to get stuck in this moment fraught with perpetual insecurity and angst. Tomorrow, at my grandmother’s house, it will be better because Scarlett taught me what I know for sure: that tomorrow is another day.