When I was 16, I watched my grandmother grow up. It was a typical end of a Christmas day in the Homer Broers household. The women folk had just settled down to tea and watching Grandma scrub every last inch of the kitchen floor. It must have been about 10 pm and the men folk were watching some sporting thingy in the living room. (Yes, Mom, this is the year I partook in the sipping of Grandpa's God awful home-made wine with the cousins and threw up in the sink. Grandma, I am sorry you thought it was your cooking that made me so sick. I promise I had only a cup or so of that horrid grape juice. Promise.) So here was this little four foot nine inches tall woman bending over the mop and telling some tale when Papa yells some command over the sound of the TV. I don't recall what the loud request was. What I do recall is my bitty Nanny yelling back: "Get your own dam...." And, then she went back to her business.
She said a swear word! We couldn't believe our ears. Now, this scene set the tone for the next twenty years of my awry Grandma's life. I had never heard this woman, a woman who bent over to please, a woman who did it all right and still had time to make you waffles in the middle of the night. Here she was saying her peace and ignoring the replications.
Now, it is true that my aunt and cousin may recall this incident differently, but they will recall it. What I saw in my young mind, trying to make all the pieces fit together in preparation for my adulthood, was this woman was finally standing up for herself. She was growing up.
I watched another woman grow up. I didn't know her well at the time. I stayed a weekend in her home with her husband and spent most of the time out in the garden reading my book, Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover. The fighting was so bad one evening after dinner that I escaped to the curb outside of the house. I sat there reading with the cool fall breeze and pondering what it was like to be fighting like that. I had not grown up with people who fought nor did I know how to fight.
The house grew quiet and the woman slipped out the front to slump by my side on the curb. She was silent for a long time. Then she said she was sorry. Later that weekend, I watched this woman grow up. She couldn't stay. All these years she had been taken care of by a man. And now, she had to go. Now, she had to learn to take care of herself. And she did.
Growing up comes in a lot of ways. Before you are twenty, the growth is obvious. There are markers like the first giggle, first step, potty training and learning to read (the awesome growth step both my children are currently mastering...I say very proudly.) But, as the years go on, the growth becomes less obvious. We move into our careers, become parents, change careers, and even learn new talents. There comes a time in every one's life when a huge growth becomes essential. For Grandma, she was in her sixties. For my friend, it was her mid-fifties. And for me, it is my thirties.
I am asked all the time what was the gift., the lesson, the growth that cancer gave me. I really can't tell you just that, yet. But, I can tell you that I went to battle and am still dealing with post traumatic stress disorder. There are the ups and the downs. And, on the ups I can see how I feel different. Like both of the women in my life, I don't want to be the pleaser anymore. I don't want to loose myself nor tell myself it is okay to not be happy about something and shut up and take it. No, I do not intend to be some mean grump. I do intend to please. But, now, I intend to bring pleasure to others in the radiance of my own well being and not because I am bending over a mop to clean up after you. I am not perfect. I am fallible. And, I love it. Well, sort of. Be patient, I am still growing and trying to make sense of it all.
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