It's 1939 and my aunt is only seventeen years old, my uncle not much older, when they marry. They keep the marriage a secret. My grandmother receives an anonymous phone call that tells her, her son is married. She is devastated. She spends the next four years ostrasizing, refusing to acknowledge, the marriage, the children. When my uncle has his third child, the first girl, and they name the baby after my grandmother, Grandma finally accepts the family. Yet, the two older boys who never met their grandma and grandpa until their sister is born, refer to Grandma as Annie's grandma.
My entire life, I grew up with this story of rejection.
The rejection left a few scars and when I hear this story, I alway feel sorry for the two cousins (whom I adore), who never felt Annie's grandma's love.
It isn't until my rejected cousin, a successful lawyer who still practices at age 74, speaks at his mother's funeral that I hear a different side of the story. He tells the story of the other side of the family, his mother's parents and her siblings. Not my family, not my grandparents. He pays homage to a grandpa who "Made him feel like he was the only grandchild in the world." And, "When he talked to us, it was as if we were the only person that mattered."
Every Sunday, my aunt took her children to her parents' home where they were lavished with love and attention, to a place where they were adored and treasured.
I see there was a different side to the story and I'm grateful for people who loved my cousins when my own family didn't.
The light illuminates the darkness of my own grandmother's hard, hard heart. And I have a change of heart--
I never want to be hard hearted. But I'm immediately reminded of a few incidences that have left me with a hard heart. I want to change. I want to be free. I don't want a 74 year legacy of hard heartedness.
I want a soft and loving heart.
My entire life, I grew up with this story of rejection.
The rejection left a few scars and when I hear this story, I alway feel sorry for the two cousins (whom I adore), who never felt Annie's grandma's love.
It isn't until my rejected cousin, a successful lawyer who still practices at age 74, speaks at his mother's funeral that I hear a different side of the story. He tells the story of the other side of the family, his mother's parents and her siblings. Not my family, not my grandparents. He pays homage to a grandpa who "Made him feel like he was the only grandchild in the world." And, "When he talked to us, it was as if we were the only person that mattered."
Every Sunday, my aunt took her children to her parents' home where they were lavished with love and attention, to a place where they were adored and treasured.
I see there was a different side to the story and I'm grateful for people who loved my cousins when my own family didn't.
The light illuminates the darkness of my own grandmother's hard, hard heart. And I have a change of heart--
I never want to be hard hearted. But I'm immediately reminded of a few incidences that have left me with a hard heart. I want to change. I want to be free. I don't want a 74 year legacy of hard heartedness.
I want a soft and loving heart.