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Willow's writing meme
Write a poem or vignette using the
below photo
She had garish red hair that was pulled off of her forehead with a sequined bobby pin,and her nails were always a whorey shade of red. When she would come over to visit she would plant herself on our nicest chair and begin her demanding. My mother in an effort to please her mother, always gave her what she wanted and I was often used as a go between....bringing her beer after beer...having to suffer the smell of her perfume that was obviously poured onto her body before she arrived. I have since learned that the name of it was Acqua di Parma....the favorite scent of movie stars from the 30's. That figures. She had a delusional opinion of herself..and it wasn't of being a loving grandmother...but rather of being a pioneer woman of the 40's striking out on her own...divorcing my grandfather...joining a cult like religion. She thought herself a woman better than the ordinary women of her circle....she dabbled being into herbs and natural foods...way ahead of her time if it were true. And maybe there was a bit of her that was ahead of her time....but she didn't live a natural life as we know it today. Instead she brought shame onto my mother and heartache to my grandfather. She threw off the dictates of her faith and lived as a free woman. But she wasn't free,she was only dependant in a different way. When she realized her big mistake it was too late...grandpa had remarried. He survived the depression and he survived her leaving. I called someone else grandmother.
I never wear perfume...couldn't think of it...and I never wear red polish on my nails. I know this is foolish..gives her power still over me even though she is dead 30 years.
I am a grandmother now, and I am forever thinking of what she was unable to enjoy in her life,
what she was unable to see as her treasure.
She never changed. She was always self-centered and saw others as the cause of her unhappiness.
It is me that has changed. I only have forgiveness for her
and compassion for the unknown suffering inside of her that loved Acqua di Parma.
Magpie tale of fiction # 33
