My grandmother was a bitch.

A fussy old bigot, she
loved to add vodka to her Sprite.
Or was it the other way around…

She never gave my grandfather a break,
there was always something.
And, when he started to lose his mind,
she complained to everyone,
right in front of him,
how he was no longer a man.

I knew the stories from my father,
how he grew up hard;
the Depression cost him brothers, sisters,
his mother.
His stepmother–
another crazy bitch
–chased him with an axe,
tried to kill him.
So he went off and started life.

He never complained.

I heard from my mother
how he gave up the chance to play in big bands
to marry my grandmother–
gave up the chance to travel,
to see the country,
maybe even see the world.

Still, he saw what he wanted to see.
He traveled the country with his family,
taking them all over
in a truck he made into a camper,
before they returned home
to the house he built for them.

I never knew if my grandmother gave anything up
to be with him.
If there was anything she had seen
or wanted to see.
These stories,
if they existed,
never got told.
I only knew that she used to be a great cook,
before she decided that she didn’t care anymore.
I knew that everything she made came with
a thick layer of grease on the surface,
like some kind of protest.
And that she made time every day to feed the stray cats
that she swore were nuisances.
Constantly ordering from catalogues,
so she’d always have something to look forward to.

Bitches,
martyrs,
we all get to see what we want to see.