![](\"https:\/\/www.irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/gram-and-me-DSC_5157.jpg\")
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I have often wondered how, statistically, I never became a drug addict, homeless, or ended up dead. Researchers have also found that folks like me, who endured immense traumas early in life, could keep going because there was one person who made a difference when it was needed to make you think you could keep going. This could be a few people over time and not always the same person. They were just the right person at the right time, when you needed someone. My grandmother was often that person in my life.<\/p>\n
Here are a few snippets I have yet to flesh out to a full story about Gram, who was a major influence on me, my character, and the person I would grow to be.<\/p>\n
French<\/strong> French was not easy for me. I suspect it was partly due to missing so much of the first semester of my freshman year of high school after being raped, getting sick, spending time in the hospital, and having an abortion. Those first few months of learning a new language suffered because of it. Still, Gram was there at her kitchen table with me, helping me. Often, she would say, \u201cIrene, I don\u2019t know how to pronounce that, but your conjugation book says this verb goes with this pronoun.\u201d<\/p>\n She never was able to speak French, but she took the time to teach me even if she didn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n Drawing<\/strong> About 10 minutes before bedtime, I went into the kitchen. My sister and my aunt had been in there a few minutes before. I didn\u2019t know what they were doing, but Gram yelled her usual, \u201chey, knock it off out there,\u201d from her chair in the living room. As I passed by my drawing, I noticed it was smeared. Someone has spilled water all over it.<\/p>\n I stood there, staring at my hours of work gone, knowing I was going to fail, and started to cry. Gram could see me from the living room and hollered, \u201cwhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d I didn\u2019t answer. She asked again. I pointed at my drawing, but still said nothing. Gram got up out of her chair and came into the kitchen. I remember she said something and I said something, but the overwhelming feelings have blocked out the words over the years.<\/p>\n Gram was livid. She walked over to the stairs and hollered for my sister and my aunt. I remember her yelling, nearly screaming. Gram rarely raised her voice. She was angry in a way I had never seen her before. Both of them got grounded. They were angry at me for weeks because I got them into trouble. They let me know about it often.<\/p>\n When Gram finished yelling, she walked back into the kitchen, through the bathroom and into her sewing room. She was there for several minutes, I assume now to compose herself. She came back out with a new piece of construction paper and told me I could start over. I told her it was now past my bedtime. She didn\u2019t care. I could do it again now or she could get me up early to do it before school. <\/p>\n I hastily worked on my project. It took about an hour and it wasn\u2019t as good as the original had been. Gram took my paper and put it away safely in her sewing room. I got a 2 on the assignment. We were graded in elementary school on 1-4 and F.<\/p>\n Remington Steele<\/strong> Remington Steele aired on Tuesdays at 10pm. I desperately wanted to watch the show. Gram made a deal with me. I had to come home every Tuesday, do my homework and take a nap until dinnertime. Only then could I watch the show and I had to go to sleep right after.<\/p>\n Now you may be thinking I could have recorded it. Maybe. Except we didn\u2019t have a VHS machine. We didn\u2019t have cable and recording things digitally didn\u2019t yet exist. If I missed the show, I missed the show. I willingly accepted Gram\u2019s terms. She\u2019s been gone 13 years now and I still don\u2019t know if she liked Remington Steele. I did. So she did. And we watched it together every Tuesday night.<\/p>\n Trading Places<\/strong> After purchasing our tickets, Gram and I peeled off to the left in the theater while Mom and my sister went to the right to their dumb horror movie. As a 13-year-old, I know some of the jokes flew over my head. Whenever there was some kind of sexual innuendo I wondered, \u201cdoes Gram understand what they\u2019re saying?\u201d Looking back now, of course she did. None of it mattered. We laughed. We had fun. We didn\u2019t see a dumb horror movie abusing dogs. It was a great night.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t the last time Gram and I would go see a movie no one else wanted to see. As I look back on those times, Gram \u201csaw\u201d me. She saw the kid that didn\u2019t fit in and she paid attention to me. She took the time to learn who I was and then did what she could to help me keep going. <\/p>\n As I became a teenager, some of my relatives said Gram spoiled me because I reminded her of my grandfather, who died two years before I was born. Sure, that is probably a small part of it, but Gram, in her own way, was looking out for me, trying to make sure I was okay in the best ways she knew how.<\/p>\n And there is no way to ever repay that kind of love and attention.<\/p>\n EDIT: My apologies if you get two notifications. Something went wrong on my end, but I think I fixed it.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have often wondered how, statistically, I never became a drug addict, homeless, or ended up dead. Researchers have also found that folks like me, who endured immense traumas early in life, could keep going because there was one person who made a difference when it was needed to make you think you could keep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[164,238,257],"class_list":["post-3963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gram","tag-gram","tag-mental-health","tag-new-york"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3963"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3965,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3963\/revisions\/3965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFrom elementary to high school, Gram would check my homework and make extremely light pencil marks next to the problems I got wrong so I could fix them. If I didn\u2019t understand what I got, she would help me as best as she could. Gram was born in 1922. By the time the 1980s came around, it had been a long time since she was in high school, but she helped anyway. We could usually figure things out and when we couldn\u2019t, I was instructed to go ask my teacher for help. I rarely did that and never told Gram because I couldn\u2019t understand why I couldn\u2019t ask. I now know it\u2019s due to trauma and not wanting to be beaten or screamed at for doing something wrong.<\/p>\n
\nWhen I was around 9 or 10, I was drawing a picture for an art class homework assignment. The assignment was to draw a heart and then do with it what you wanted. I got home from school and started working on it as soon as I had finished my other homework, only taking a break to eat dinner. When it was completed, I showed it to Gram and explained what all the little bits and pieces meant. I had chosen to use markers, which in those days didn\u2019t always dry quickly. Gram suggested I leave it on the kitchen table to dry completely overnight and so it would be relatively flat.<\/p>\n
\nMy bedtime throughout junior high and high school was 9pm. I never got to sleep all the way through the night as I had to get up at 1am each day to deliver newspapers. Regardless, at 9pm, I was expected to be in bed. Then, in 1982, this awesome new TV began and I learned the fine art of bargaining.<\/p>\n
\nDuring the summer of 1983, my family wanted to go to the movies. Most everyone wanted to go see Cujo. I didn\u2019t like Stephen King books and wasn\u2019t a fan of horror like most of my family. I certainly didn\u2019t want to see a movie about a rabid dog. Neither did Gram. We opted to go see Trading Places.<\/p>\n