We moved into the Giant’s parents house. I would come to call them “Grandma and Grandpa”. We lived up in the attic rooms of their house. Mom and the Giant had one side of the attic and I had the room on the other side. The steps leading up to the attic rooms were high and steep. One morning, I slipped on the top step and rolled down the steps. The Giant had already started walking down ahead of me and when he heard me rolling down, he stopped and stopped me from rolling the rest of the way to the bottom, with his legs.
The Grandma and Grandpa were okay. I was a little afraid of the Grandma. She had a loud voice and yelled, it seemed like all the time. She’d come to tell me that that is just the way she talked. The Grandpa was not loud. He was a small man, but he always had this scowl on his face that made me a bit afraid to ask him anything or even be near.
Did I feel like I was part of the family? No. Not really. Not ever.
One year, there was a friend of the Grandma and Grandpa that came calling on a holiday. The Grandpa was so proud introducing Bridget. Bridget was the daughter of their only daughter Linda. I called her Aunt Linda. Bridget was her daughter, my “cousin”. Bridget was two years younger than me. Bridget had beautiful honey blond hair and perfect blue eyes. Bridget was perfect. His words were…… “Look at this one, (pointing his finger at Bridget) she’s my FIRST grandchild. Isn’t she beautiful ”. I was standing next to Bridget.
As young as I was, I had this funny feeling that I wasn’t really standing there at all, that I wasn’t really being seen, and I really wasn’t. So I stepped to the side and ever so slowly, backed out of the room. I wasn’t being seen. I came to understand that day that I wasn’t the first “born” grandchild. I wasn’t the first grandchild. I came to understand that day, that I wasn’t really anything worth any introduction.
There was Grandpa’s mother who came to visit rarely. I was glad for that. Nana Kaline. When she came I was always forced to go up to her and say hello. It’s a rule. “Give her a kiss, say “hello”. I could tell she would rather I not. After the hello, I disappeared into the background again. I don’t think she actually ever even looked at me. I just wasn’t there. Then there was Great Grandma Berger. That was Grandma‘s mother. She was a lovely lady. She had this huge hump on her back and walked with a gait because of the weight of it. She took time to look at me, to say “hello” to me and asked me questions like “how are you dear”. She was a person. She looked at me like I was a person too. She was not afraid to talk to me. She answered my questions. One day I asked her about the big lump on her back and she told me that when she was a young girl, she and her friends used to try and grab the back bumpers of passing cars and ride them on their heels. Skitching. That’s what they called the game. The last time or maybe it was the first and last time she tried to play the game, she faltered and it was a disaster. The accident left her terribly broken and the hump on her back would be the reminder of how fragile life could be and that she needed to love hers and live it humbly and not risk stupidness. I loved Great Grandma Berger.
I was not used to the foods they prepared and made me eat. I used to have to sit for hours at their table until “finish everything on your plate” was repeated like a hundred times. That was a rule. “Eat everything on your plate. There are starving children in Africa”. There were timers set on me and I had to finish my plate before the timer rang or I would be punished. They forced me to eat things I did not want or like. I cried all the time.
The big wooden spoon was the weapon of choice. Or the wall and you would not be allowed to sit, just face the wall.
I was left behind a year in school because I didn’t know English. I was not allowed to talk my native tongue. That was a rule too. I wasn’t allowed to speak it to my mother in Tagalog because Grandma thought I was talking bad about her. I learned English quickly enough.
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