When I was seven, my parents moved us from our small home in south Georgia to a quaint little neighborhood in Warner Robins, a not-so-big town about an hour and a half away.
In other words we moved from a podunk little place to a mostly middle-class, predominately White neighborhood in a military town where I could count the number of Black faces almost anywhere we went.
Albany isn't the greatest for some, but for so long in my life it was the only place I'd ever known, and loved. I have a flair for the nostalgic, and each time I reminisced about it all I could see were the family ties and time spent with the natural things. I loved nature as a child and I'm left in awe of it as adult. My cousin/best friend and I would pick strawberries and blueberries, green plums, sour grass and pecans, and we could run for what seemed to be miles along the stretch in our grandparents' backyard.
Saturday mornings we'd watch the rain fall or help Granddaddy clean fish he'd caught at the lake just up the road. We spent little to no time watching TV. There were always people cooking or cleaning or spending the night and no matter what travesties happened (Flood of '94, tornado at school, our uncle being sent to jail) we always had each other.
Before my mother and stepfather began dating, my mom went to Augusta for a few months and lived there with her older sister. She left me with my grandmother who'd practically begged her to let me stay. I loved it. I don't remember much but what I do remember is my mom telling a story of how I began calling my gma "Momma" and her "Gina" instead. I've kept that story so near to my heart, just as I do the image of sitting in Grandma's lap while hearing her tell me that I'd always be her baby [girl].
No wonder it's been so emotionally draining to live damn near 200 miles away from the sweetest thing I've ever known: HOME.
It's been hard.
As I've matured and grown older the nostalgia has slowly worn off into a faint murmur of happiness; seeing the city itself is like looking through sepia-colored lenses with dust streaks on the glass. Everything's in disarray but no one seems to be hungry for more. The trees are thirsting for green and the dirt is yearning for fresh air, but all that's left is misery and an old Civil Rights Memorial pool.
My grandfather sets in the same place each morning at the end of the kitchen table while his wife labors over a barely working stove. My aunts are all involved with pitiful excuses of men, so stuck in their own selfish ways they don't see my cousins prepping for premature pregnancy or prison life. My dad's distant relatives probably wouldn't recognize my face because just like his, they haven't seen mine in several years. I'm trying to convince myself to keep traveling there for major holidays but I won't be able to muster up nerve if things continue like this.
*sigh*
Tosin and I began our trek there this year Wednesday evening, when we drove the two-hour drive to my mother's house. I immediately felt the pressures building but I didn't want to cause a stir since I will surprised he wanted to join my folks on Thanksgiving. Just a week before we sat in my car talking and I told him that my spirit longed for my grandmother, and that I hoped I wouldn't break down and cry before the end of the trip.
Go figure.
Late Wednesday night my mother disclosed to me the situation with gma, and all the feelings I'd experienced months before came rushing in like a roll tide I wasn't ready for.
Some time in July I got a phone call from my mother saying that my cousin had been shot by police during an attempted armed robbery and also that he had flatlined twice during his stay in the hospital. The news spread like wildfire since it was publicized on local TV stations across the state. It had come to me a bit too soon, considering that only two weeks previous a very teary-eyed Courtney sat across from Tosin at lunch and had an eerie conversation on the subject. I relayed to him my feelings, I had a strong sense that 'something bad was going to happen to Chris if I didn't stop it' and whaddayaknow - it happened.
This time, just like last, I tried to fight back the tears of helplessness because I knew then, like now, that the universe's way of handling things is separate from my own.
My grandmother has a suspicious growth on her liver and that - coupled with bloody urine and fatigue - could mean something I don't want to accept: I'll have to move my home to Marietta and be content with never going to Albany again.
I'm saddened by the news, to say the least, and I'm fighting off negative thoughts as best I can.
Wasn't I just telling my therapist that my restless mind was ruining my mood and my life for that matter? Wasn't I scratched and scraped a little by having to admit to myself that my father is likely in jail again? It feels like every time I try to let my real, sensitive self show something comes out of left field and throws that whole 'be who you are' bull out the window. Damn.
I can't be selfish and focus on self when my grandma is dealing with this blow. She seemed so happy and grateful when I took her shopping Black Friday (although I was smitten with just the thought of having her company for a few hours). The 41 degree weather doesn't help with depression in the slightest. Neither do finals nor graduation.
I admitted to myself earlier that I have a problem with closure.
But right now, I'll digress. It's true that seasons change and time waits for no man but could you wait a little longer for my grandma, sir? I want my son to know the wonders about where I was born, to see the stars and smell the sweetness of fresh soil after it's rained. I want him to know that we come from good, country, Southern folk, and that he gets the red in his skin from the Georgia clay. I want him to know that no matter how far you go and the sights you see, there's NO PLACE in the world like home. That the closest thing you've got to God is your Grandma.
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