My grandmother Ruby slept in a small, narrow cot in the front room of the farm. The cot and the pump organ that sat by the window overlooking the apple trees and the vegetable garden were the only two things I could remember about the room. My daddy played it often, letting me sit on his lap and showing me the basics of the old Baptist hymns while he adjusted the knobs and pumped the pedals steadily. I remember the breathless wheezing of the old thing, the smooth, dark wood, the yellowed old keys. It took concentration and effort to play and I never got the hang of it but my daddy had never seemed to mind. I learned my chords and that was enough. A soft breeze would sometimes stir the sheer curtains on the windows as Ruby puttered around in her nightclothes with her hair unbraided and though she never said so, I thought she might've liked the music.
Mostly I remember her in a house dress and apron with her hair braided and wound around her head. She was a small woman, a sensible, ungenerous and disapproving woman - truth to tell - always spare in her speech and slow to smile. She disliked idleness or decoration and her work was never done. Everything I remember about her is hazy, dreamlike almost, but she was always in motion. She believed in consequences and precious little sympathy. Her life was not easy or certain and I suppose she expected her reward to come in heaven. I can't remember hearing her laugh - there was too much sin in the word to rejoice - and for the life of me, I can't think of a single time she hugged or kissed one of her children or grandchildren. She worked and when she was finished, she worked some more. All I can remember her ever teaching me was how to shell peas.
The cold weight of family can crush you.
News of her death came with a telephone call and over my mother's protests - loud, mocking and unkind - he packed a bag and jumped on a plane. He never talked about it.
We are what we come from, I suppose, what we are shown and taught. We carry on as if there's no other way.
I wish I'd known Ruby and that side of my family better.
And I still think about that old pump organ.
The cold weight of family can crush you.
News of her death came with a telephone call and over my mother's protests - loud, mocking and unkind - he packed a bag and jumped on a plane. He never talked about it.
We are what we come from, I suppose, what we are shown and taught. We carry on as if there's no other way.
I wish I'd known Ruby and that side of my family better.
And I still think about that old pump organ.
No comments:
Post a Comment