Ch 3 (finally)

At about six months old, my mother accused my dad and her mom of an affair.  I never would have remembered that at that age.  Just like everything else, it’s all hearsay to me, not just crazy.  It went like this, Mawmaw handed me off to my dad and my dad supposedly brushed against my grandma’s breast in the handoff of me.  My momma said she saw the whole thing go on with her own eyes.  Now I’ve heard two different versions from my momma.  One, Daddy brushed up against Mawmaw’s boob; two, my daddy grabbed Mawmaw’s boob.  Daddy and Mawmaw both told me there was never any sexual stuff between them.  My momma swears till this day that they indeed did have an affair.  This is one of the many affairs my mother claimed on my daddy.

Around my second birthday, my nannie that showed up for me at my baptism no longer was allowed to be in my life.  The “wicked” aunt then became my new godmother.  The woman that showed up for me was denied seeing me anymore.  She tried; she told me later on in life.  She was married to a great uncle of mine.  The funny thing here is there was another woman before those two that was chosen to be my godmother from the beginning.  But my momma changed her mind apparently.  Later on, in my childhood my momma and her became friends again and I met her but not as Nanny.  My momma was her oldest son’s godmother.  I didn’t find out about who she was supposed to be to me till I was way older.

As I got older, I started to notice a pattern of actions and such from my momma.  Every time my momma would have a disagreement or altercation with anyone no matter if it was family or not, they were denied seeing me.  It was the same for my little brother after he was born.  There were many times my great-grandparents weren’t allowed to see us or talk to us because of my momma’s stupidity.   They would call, they all called.  I can remember  Mawmaw calling once.  I was about seven years old at the time, I can still almost hear Mawmaw crying.  Of course, my mother had to put it on speaker phone.  Most times she would use it was to record their conversations.   My momma told her that little brother and I didn’t miss her cause we wouldn’t ask about her. She told her we didn’t care about her and the best thing for her to do is to forget about all of us and stop calling.

My momma has no idea what that did to us as kids.  Well, I can’t speak for little brother, but I can for myself.  It was hell.  Having to hear Mawmaw cry like that.  We were her everything.  I watched my momma’s actions, like how her body was moving as I listened to their harsh conversation in which my mother was in fact recording.  I was left with questions.  Questions as such as why she had told Mawmaw all those lies, we’d ask about her just about every day.  I wanted to know why I couldn’t talk to Mawmaw while she was on the phone.  I only got responses like because your grandma can’t stand me.  Or I need to forget about her.  Oh, this one, “She don’t need to see y’all”.  My grandma played a huge part in my life.  And that just tore me up to pieces.