Maybe it was reading the obit. Maybe it just is the Veil. But whatever the case, today on a windy, rainy New Jersey afternoon, I find my great-grandmother's mother sitting here with me in my living room, sharing a glass of apple cider! Please give a warm, wonderful, Gods Are Bored welcome to Susan Bennett Imes!
Anne: Greetings, beloved ancestress! Here, have another macaroon.
Susan: Thank you! These are delicious!
Anne: I have to ask. If you had 65 great-grandchildren (one of which was my dad), how many living descendants do you have now?
Susan: 2,487, maybe another one tomorrow.
Anne: Wow. Just ... wow. How do you keep up with all of them?
Susan: I don't. I'm only interested in the ones who are interested in me.
Anne (preening): People like me, you mean.
Susan: I am actually blessed with many descendants who know my name, and where I'm buried, and other facts from the above obit. If you had ever bothered to ask your dad about me, he would have told you about me. But you didn't.
Anne: Damn. My bad! He was 14 when you passed! He must have known you.
Susan: Indeed he did. But never mind! I forgive you. Danny Junior isn't a fellow who has a lot to say about family.
Anne: But I heard about him returning a punt 90 yards for a touchdown about 15 times growing up.
Susan: Men. What can I say?
Anne: But let's talk about you! Married at fifteen, eleven children, living in the mountains ... you must have been one hardy individual.
Susan: Hardy and lucky, in equal parts. I almost stepped on a poisonous snake when I was ten.
Anne: Me too!
Susan: Medicine is much improved in your time.
Anne: Oh my, don't I know it. You know, ancestress, I really miss living in the mountains. You were so lucky to be able to spend your whole life in Bedford County.
Susan: Great-great-great granddaughter, you are an idiot.
Anne: I beg your pardon?
Susan: This is part of the reason I'm here. Your homesickness for the ancestral lands is well noted among your people. We think it's sweet. But it's also misguided.
Anne: I must be respectful to you, so I'll listen to your rationale.
Susan: Look how you live. Look at this house! I raised eleven children in four rooms! Look at your fireplace! Look at the upholstery on this sofa!
Anne: Well, yes, I am rather fond of this upholstery. White is hard to keep up, you know.
Susan: In a poor-soil agrarian community with a large family, it would be completely impossible to keep up. Or even to purchase. Anne, I'll be blunt: You live like a queen.
Anne: Me? GGG Grandma, you are mistaken! I'm struggling middle class... You have descendants that I personally know who are far better off than me!
Susan: They haven't invited me by for cider and cookies. And I don't care how much better they have it. I'm only looking at you. And you have such an easy life.
Anne: Easy? Easy? I teach school! I'm being observed Monday afternoon by a brand new administrator!
Susan: I quit school at age 12. Education is a blessing.
Anne: But look at this flat land! A whopping four feet above sea level, and the only hills are built by bulldozers. I miss the mountains so much!
Susan: The soil in your back yard is richer than the best dirt my garden ever had. And you don't even have to have a garden. You don't have to grow anything, and watch it dry in a drought, or get eaten by weevils, or grow rust in wet weather. In your whole life you have never lost a single crop. Now let's look again at this house. It's cold and wet outside, but in here the temperature is perfect! Two automobiles in the driveway outside ...
Anne: Well, one-and-a-half. I would hardly call The Bucket ...
Susan: Two.
Anne: Yes ma'am.
Susan: That stove of yours is a marvel. And two flush toilets inside. You say you miss the mountains?
Anne: The air. The views. The solitude.
Susan: Visit whenever you like, Anne. The flatland is better. Please take it from me. I would know.
Anne: Such wisdom I've gained from you, in such a short time! But there is one thing. We are living in very dark times, respected ancestress. Our president is a horror, and there's hate afoot in the land.
Susan: Child. I lived through the Civil War, the Spanish American War, the First World War, and part of the Second World War. Plus the 1919 influenza and the Great Depression. Again, I am not impressed by your current political situation. If you're not standing in line for soup or rationing sugar and practicing for air raids, you are doing okay.
Anne: But, can you see into the future?
Susan: No. Thank goodness.
Anne: You've certainly given me something to think about GGG Granny. Will you stick around for Samhain? I'll show you some pictures of some of your other descendants on my computer.
Susan: No thank you. As I said, if they aren't interested in me, I'm not interested in them.
Anne: It's their loss. You're a wise woman, strong, and awesome.
Susan: Oh my lordy ... are you putting sour cream in mashed potatoes? Throw that out!
Anne: Hang on, sweet lady. You're in for a treat.
5 comments:
What a great conversation and while I tend to wish for living as they did in the past, your GGG Granny has some good points.
blessings
~*~
she's correct, you know. we DO have it better now; we women have access to jobs and healthcare and education, something she did not have.
there are ghostly spirits as long as we keep them alive in our memory.
the Ol'Buzzard
Great post, Anne, creative and inventive! And true too. "We are the fairy tale told by our ancestors."
wow..I loved that...and can't you just imagine what our ancestors would think of how we live and what we have?
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