Member-only story
THE NARRATIVE ARC
An Ode to My Two Grandmothers That I Didn’t Love
How I celebrate the difficult women in my life after they died
Unbeknownst to my grandmothers, some of the qualities I appreciate the most about myself, I inherited from them. My grandmothers, one Jewish, one Colombian, were not of the cute and cuddly strain.
No one was baking me muffins whilst reading me Mother Goose on her lap.
We tend to feel nostalgic or obligated to say something sweet at just the mention of the word grandma. She’s the adorable old woman knitting on the porch, with the roast in the oven. She lived for your success. You are the future of the family. Her doily-filled home was your soft place to fall.
I had friends with this grandma. I never identified with the reverence they felt— the love they had for their grandmother. This had me worried. I wasn’t jealous. I wasn’t longing for a grandma. Instead, practical kid that I was, I worried about one of my own grandmothers dying. They were old. I knew I wouldn’t cry.
I didn’t love my grandmothers. I didn’t feel a loss — it was just a fact. They didn’t really love me either. Not a love I could recognize.
