It was Tuesday. I hated nothing more than Tuesdays. Upon hearing the day’s name, my heart would sink. All sixteen hours of sunlight were associated with nothing more than bizarre smells, bland baking and a boring old lady that I call Grandma, but I’ll tell you now, I saw nothing “grand” about her. Before leaving the car to enter the little old lady’s too big house, I turned to my mum to make one final plea.
“Do I have to visit her this week? Can’t I just go with you?” The complaint flowed so naturally from my lips.
Mum flicked the switch that unlocked the car doors, “Of course you have to go in,” She said without looking at me, “You know that Grandma looks forward to your visits more than anything else.”
I fiddled with the zipper on my backpack and chose my words carefully, “I don’t see why she would look forward to it. We just spend five hours staring at the clock, waiting for the misery to end.”
“Oh – it can’t be that bad! Doesn’t she tell you stories? I thought you would have known the whole history of the Japanese-Indonesian war by now.”
I did like history but continued to argue, “When you were young, did she tell you stories? I’ve never heard Grandma tell a story in my life. She’s dull. She’s just a boring old woman.”
Mum was taken aback, “This isn’t about me or what Grandma did or didn’t do when I was young,” after a pause, her voice was lowered. She spoke calm and softly, “Back then, she was busy. She had ten mouths to feed and a dying husband to look after. But now – now all she has is time.”
“Well, I wish she didn’t have time for me,” I mumbled this, knowing I had lost the battle. As soon as Mum mentioned her Mum’s hard past, I couldn’t keep calling her a wretched old woman. I had to go in. Not for me, but for my mother and for my Grandma who had suffered long and hard to get where she is today. Honestly, I don’t know how she did it.
I opened the car door and slung my backpack over my shoulder. I always bring something to do while I’m there – a book to read or a crossword puzzle to work – but I never end up touching any of it. We just sit there, staring. I reflected on the last two Tuesdays where all Grandma made to eat was bitter cookies. She must’ve used whole wheat flour because there’s no other way you can make a cookie taste so bland. I waved to my mum and swung the car door shut.
I debated whether I should just sit outside for five hours until my Mum’s appointment in the city was done. I evaluated the sky. There were no clouds and the summer day promised to be balmy and sweet. There was a real temptation just to sit on the porch step and wait. The only thing stopping me was a nagging thought pushing to the forefront of my mind. The thought simply said, “She’s your Grandma.” This woman was my responsibility. None of her other children cared to visit her so it was left on me and thus I decided right then and there that I would make the best of it.
I was surprised to find that Grandma was sitting in the living room waiting for me. Usually, when I come, I have to go to her bedroom and wake her up but today she was prepared. In her cataract eyes I saw a desire; for the first time, I noticed that she wanted to spend the evening with me. I let the corners of my mouth rise up in what could be called a happy expression and said a quick “Hi, Grandma.” She only smiled.
We both stayed perfectly still as if time had stopped. It was an eternity later that her dry lips quivered and said, “Aren’t you going to ask me what’s for lunch?” I tipped my head in confusion, urging her to continue, “That’s always the first thing you ask me,” She stated matter-of-factly as she pushed on the arm of the chair to help force herself up.
“I was actually going to ask how you were doing,” I said this, uncertain if I really had been preparing to do so. After a little more thought, I realized that I was, in fact, going to ask what she had made for me. Was I always this self-centered?
Grandma was still struggling to stand up so I rushed over to help her. Her little frame turned out to be a lot heavier than I thought, “Why don’t you just sit, Gran?”
She sunk back into the blue, worn couch, looking up at me with renewed interest. Unsure of what to do next I decided to try as mum had suggested, “Would you tell me a story?” The conversation was so uncomfortable and the words repeated over and over in my mind, echoing their meaningless substance.
“How’s school?” Grandma asked instead.
I wondered if she hadn’t heard me but decided to play along, “It’s the summer, Gran. There are no kids are in school right now.”
She chuckled, “I forgot all about that. You know, I never had a summer vacation.”
“Really? Never? They just stuck you in school all year ‘round?”
“O dear – O dear,” She said under her breath, “If I had gone to school at all I’m sure they would’ve.”
“Why didn’t you go to school?” I was caught off guard by her response. No one can be successful unless they go to school. This was a lesson that my teachers had worked hard to engrain in me for the past ten years. Perhaps Grandma’s lack of schooling was the reason she was so lonely in her old age. As my thoughts progressed along this line, Grandma said something that surprised me further.
“No, no… there are no schools in an Indonesian prison camp. No one had time to do arithmetic. We were toiling along life’s path at a much younger age than you.”
Somehow, I had forgotten all about my grandmother’s dark history, “How old were you when they started – er – your internment?”
“Well, let me see,” her eyes stared off into the unknown distance, “It was my parent’s third year as missionaries in Indonesia when the war started and we were interned in the second year. I would have been eight years old when we were first gathered up with the other prisoners and thrown into a cage like mindless animals.”
I was surprised to hear her descriptive language. Perhaps Grandma was more talented than I had first judged. Because without going to school, how does one learn to use a simile?
“I spent many good years in that prison camp but I don’t regret one moment,” Her sagging skin was etched with wrinkles that spoke more of tears than they did of laughter. I found it hard to believe that anyone would be alright with being imprisoned, especially as a youth. “The things I learned in the yard between the chain-link fences guarded by soldiers were more valuable than anything else I could have attained along my journey.”
“I thought you said they didn’t have schools in prison camps.”
My Grandma’s astounding memory kicked in as she began to recite that I recognized to be from Epictetus, “’We see that a carpenter becomes a carpenter by learning certain things: that a pilot, by learning certain things, becomes a pilot… The mere desire to be wise and good is not enough. It is necessary to learn certain things,’” She summarized that last sentence by saying, “This was the object of my search.”
“I thought that that quote was about education. Isn’t it saying that school is important?” I asked, trying to recall just how my teacher had put it when she had shown the class this phrase before summer vacation.
“Darling, don’t you see,” Grandma’s voice was almost sweet and singsong, “A carpenter and a pilot, they both need experience. They cannot be good at what they do unless the go out and try. A carpenter may know the math of how to create a perfect chair but can only do so with a lot of practice, desire and wisdom. I learned everything I needed to know in life right there in that prison camp.”
I wanted to ask her why, then, had her life turned out to be such a failure. She never got a job and relied on her husband to support the copious family members. All went up in flames when her husband was restricted to bed with MS until his dying day. The prison camp seemed to have done nothing for her.
The conversation seemed to end. I helped Grandma stand up and we went to the kitchen table where she had a little lunch prepared. Honestly, I don’t think we spoke another word until I said “Good-bye, thanks for the visit,” when I left that evening. Story time had ended.
****
****
For the next seven days, I couldn’t stop thinking about Grandma. I let the little story she had told me role over and over in my mind. The only logical conclusion I could come to was that the experiences she had as a youth growing up in conditions with little food, water or love had formed her character. I couldn’t see that this was a good environment to be molding an individual so I was determined to inquire from her further on the coming Tuesday.
When my mother and I pulled up in front of the house, a part of me still didn’t want to go in, but I had opened the car door before the vehicle had stopped rolling and was in the house before my mum could’ve put the car back in gear. Like a blood-hound, I searched out my Grandma in the house. She was back in her bed under a mound of blankets.
Before I had even said hello, she said, “Come here, sweetie.” I sat on the edge of the mattress as I do with my mum, “I don’t think that I finished my story.”
I shook my head as a smile pushed my cheeks up into an anticipatory grin. I was glad that the old woman and I were on the same page.
So the story-telling began, “I did get an education, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. You said that being in a prison camp was the education you needed,” I reminded her of what we had been talking about the week before.
“That is true,” She paused, “But there is more. I never went to school as a youth, but when Dirk got sick, I put myself through college to become a teacher.”
“Is that really so? They would let you teach even though you didn’t even go to grade school?”
“Oh- I never finished the years of schooling. Getting a job wouldn’t have done me any good.”
“Of course it would have! You could have fed your family, provided for all their needs! Just think of the things you could’ve done!” I didn’t mean to make my Grandma feel bad but the words were programmed in me from the years I myself had spent within the walls of schools. I was going to apologize for speaking so abruptly but could not before a stream of wisdom flowed from her tender body.
“Education, you speak of education as if it can only be attained from a professor. The truest forms of education do not come when you study a text book or write a test. Yes, life is for learning but it’s also for teaching. I learned everything I needed to know in the Prison camp; Where I failed was with teaching.”
“Grandma, you’re not making sense. You said that you were glad you didn’t become a teacher.”
“Teaching happens in more places than a classroom. My only regrets in life were these: I wish I had cherished every moment with my children while they still loved me;” She paused here as my throat became course with tears, “I wish I had laughed at every joke my husband told me, even if they weren’t funny; and I wish I had drawn closer to the Lord for it is He that paves the road to my successes and finds a way up from my failures.”
My Grandma’s words hung in the air like a heavy fog. As she told me her qualms my own sorrows bursted from within me. How I wished that I had never despised this old woman! How I wished that I had let my Creator guide me through the ups and downs rather than letting myself be hardened from love. It became the truest desire of my heart at that moment to allow myself to be taught by more than just teachers but by experience – mine and that of the wise.
My thoughts so overwhelmed me that I had not noticed the tears now staining my youthful cheeks or the paths of they had made through the groves and ruts in Grandma’s course face. Now aware of the heart-wrenching reality, I clung to my Grandma. She was more than an old woman. From this point on she was a well-spring of wisdom and experience. She was the teacher of my character as she sought to fulfill the object of her search.
In my ear she whispered this closing statement:
“That the difference be found in the manners and abilities of men is owing more to their education than to anything else, we have reason to conclude, that great care is to be had of the forming children’s minds, and giving them that seasoning early, which shall influence their lives always after.” -John Locke
And I was never the same.
continues on
