Somebody asked me if I love my second grandchild as much as I love my first grandchild. They couldn't figure out why I have not written about him the way I blogged here about my "Little Dude" in the first years of my blog. And suddenly I was filled with horror, because my second grandchild may one day believe I did not care as much for him as I do for his big brother, because I have not blogged about him.
When I was twelve, living in a trailer park in Utah, I was friends with a girl named Cindi Salzetti. She had all these great magazines and records, and we would read and listen to them when I was allowed to visit her up the road. She had a small tv in her room, and I watched Andy Gibb sing Shadow Dancing on some television show. I heard a song called "I'm Yours" by Prince. I took home some of the pull-out posters Cindi let me have from Tiger Beat magazines. I found other ways to get posters, and slowly started taping them to my bedroom wall. I knew these things were "of the devil," but I did not want to end up in heaven with my father anyway, so I did not care. I enjoyed my small collection of posters. I even got ahold of some Bee Gees and Andy Gibb cassettes and had Debby Boone's cassette. (I had a bit of a crush on Debby Boone, the first signs of my personal experience of human sexuality, something I did not understand at all then.) A month or so passed, and my father had said nothing about my posters.
One day he stormed into my room and started tearing down posters and throwing them into a trash can. He grabbed my tapes, and I did something I had never done before. I asked him why he could have Linda Ronstadt and Crystal Gayle tapes but I couldn't have my own cassettes. He stormed to his room and came back to my room, tearing the thin glistening black tape out of a Ronstadt cassette while he screamed, and then proceeding to rip the voices on shimmering ribbon out of my cassettes. I shut up and shut down, trying not to feel anything. I stood there, mute, stupid. Then he grabbed Ratty, the stuffed animal my paternal Grandparents bought for me with greenstamps when I turned one. Ratty went with me to hospitals. He was my silent, constant friend. I loved him with all of my heart. And in that instant, I realized what was required. I turned toward my father, put all the disdain I could muster into my voice, and said, "Go ahead, throw it away. It was YOUR parents who gave him to me anyway!" I turned away. My father stomped out with the trash can. I slowly turned toward my bed. Ratty was still there.
I knew, if I loved or cared about anything or anyone, my father would hurt me with it/them, because he knew that specifically would hurt me to my core. Thus began my coming teenage years of being too tough to ever outwardly show love of anything or anyone. It was the only way to protect myself from having my father hurt me with them.
I finally allowed myself to express my love for other humans when I had children. When myspace came into existence, and we got a computer from my sister in 2001, I started letting my love express itself on social media. It felt nice to be free to express the love I felt. By the time my first grandchild was born, it was so nice to freely express my love for him. And then I paid the price. I had forgotten the lesson I learned in that tiny bedroom back in Utah. I had to realize my father is not an aberration.
I met my second grandchild when he was 5 months old. Every week or so I get to skype with my oldest grandchild, and I get to enjoy his little brother, who is two now, during those skypes.
In the off chance anyone ever questions my love for my second grandchild, or my estranged child, I am right now stating this unequivocally: I love my 3 children and my grandchildren with all of my heart. I denied my love of Ratty once, and it saved him. But he could take it. I could say those words to my father, and it would not harm Ratty.
I love my kids and grandkids, with an unconditional and deep love I will never feel for anyone else. Always.
