The Incomplete Autobiography of
GryEyes911

While away at college, my sister quite suddenly got married. I remember thinking how selfish it was of her to do that, and not even invite any of us! Right around that time, my mother took the opportunity to have a pretty serious talk with me. It wasn't about the birds and the bees (I'd gotten an "A" in "Health & Biology" at school so the theory of procreation was something I understood, conceptually. So to speak, that is...) but about a broader type of social situation. I recall the short conversation vividly.

"Linda, if you ever get into what society calls "trouble," you KNOW you won't be in trouble with me and you can always come home."

I was shocked and blurted out: "Mom! I'm not going to do that 'til I'm married, and I'm not getting married until I'm 22."

She hugged me, saying, "Well, honey, if it doesn't work out that way for you, don't be heartbroken!"

Mom was pretty good with advice; "it" didn't work out that way, and I don't think I was heartbroken for too terribly long.

I would have had a niece if my sister's baby had lived longer than 18 hours.

I was thirteen when my mother died. My sister was devastated, even though she was living in Portland with her husband -- and still attending college -- when it happened. (Yes, I know that sounds heartless of me, but it came on the heels of her own child's death so it was a double-whammy for her. I think it took about 3 years before I really, really missed my Mom. She'd been in and out of the hospital at various times, so it was sort of like "just another" long stay, there. My mother refused Last Rites and requested there be no services.... so there wasn't any ceremonial closure for me; she just didn't come home.)

She died on a Thursday, while Granny and I were watching Dean Martin: March 30th, 1967. The phone rang, which was pretty unusual for that hour of the night. About 20 minutes after my grandmother hung up, Mom's friends, the Hollowells, arrived to break the news to me. I knew what it was about, without them saying so... I spent a couple of hours curled up on the sofa next to Floyd, listening to cop stories he shared with me. I was given one of Granny's sleeping pills and the last story I remember was his rendition of getting a woman in labor to the hospital so he wouldn't have to deliver her baby in his patrol car. He made it too, but cleaned all the carbon deposits out of the exhaust system. Or something like that, anyway.

I didn't catch the bus to school the next morning; instead, our social worker showed up the next morning to take me with her on her rounds. We stopped at a used bookstore and she bought me a couple of paperbacks I'd been trying to find at the library. I went back to school the following day.

For the first time in my life, one of the popular girls at school fawned all over me when the news about my mother's death got around. Boy, she milked that sympathy thing to her best advantage and I let her, knowing full well she was only using poor, poor Linda as another charity case to make her look good. The novelty passed; I had the opportunity to see real shallowness in action.

At home, it was just Granny and me. She was very bitter about out-living one of her children and my aunt wasn't too thrilled about the situation, either. I became a ward of the state of Oregon, in my grandmother's custody, and the Department of Social Services put me through a variety of tests and evaluations. I remember sitting in their offices, waiting, and they didn't even have anything very interesting to read. I amused myself by attempting to pronounce the words printed on the office glass doors, backwards, and to this day, I can still say "Eraflew cilbup" (with a hard "c" sound) whenever I think about it. One of their tests indicated I had an IQ of 156. Great; confirmation as a "genius" reaffirmed my geek status.

It wasn't all depressing, though! Even after Mom died, I was treated as a full member of the matriarchy with equal rights. My opinions had been welcomed, nurtured, challenged and treated with respect. I'd been allowed to set my own hours, within reason; since I valued my grades at school, if I stayed up too late to get adequate rest, my punisment was bringing home a B. We'd always watch the evening and late news together; Granny continued to work on her 80-bazillion piece jigsaw puzzles. We had a fire in the fireplace almost every night and I learned how to set the kindling on the crumpled newspapers under the main firelogs just so.

My bedroom was in the "Chart House," small, private and detached from the main building. Although "Go to your room!" was something the other kids at school dreaded, I wouldn't have minded much. I did spend more time there, alone, after Mom died, than I had before. Sometimes my grandmother would come knock on the door to see if I wanted to come into the main house and keep her company.

That changed, though. My father reappeared to take me back to California with his "new" wife and kids, just for the summer. I was ecstatic at having a full set of parents and sisters once again. Wow! TWO sisters, now, and I wasn't the youngest! It broke my grandmother's heart when I chose to remain there and the Department of Social Services solidified that decision.

Every few years, I take a Road Trip up through Oregon and make a point to visit our old home. This is a view of the house from the Devil's Punch Bowl State Park, taken in August '99.

Granny sold this house in Otter Rock (although it was barn red and not blue, at the time) and moved to a mobile-home park in Portland. She left the glorious Oregon coast to live closer to my aunt, her surviving daughter, because she couldn't live by herself in such a remote location. She had a heart condition, couldn't drive any more, and had to move 100 miles away to the city from her beloved home overlooking the ocean. (Here's a bigger picure of what she had to give up; that little now-blue house sits directly over the beach, with only a very few neighbors.)

My grandmother died before I got a chance to get back to make amends for choosing to live with "that bastard" my father, instead of her. Very little of my mother's belongings were given to us; my sister managed to save some items. Often when I visit her, I touch those heirlooms and am both sad that's all that remains and glad that she was able to salvage those bits of our history.

What else did I lose as a youngster? Well, let's see, when I was fifteen, I earned the dubious right to start wearing tampons.... under the criteria previously established in my mind at age eleven.