Living at Grampa Harm G Tilstra's house in Harrisburg (next door to the house where my parents lived when I was born) was one of my favorite times in my childhood. Though I was not yet 3 years old, I had incredible freedoms because I was small & quiet enough to play and wander (never crossing the RR tracks nor the highway, sans help) without calling the attention nor wrath of the gumpy guy who was sometimes a fun grampa.
Once, after I'd gathered up my little doll-playing friends on Grampa's porch, I reenacted what I'd seen him do earlier, out of their sight: I stood with my hands on my hips, my face into the wind and announced "Smells like rain" and sat back down. Sho'nuf, it began raining in earnest moments later and I cinched the title as coolest kid in town. For that unbeknownst-to-him assistance, I'll be forever grateful.
Burned into my memory, dinner around the table, Hank Williams Jr. or sumsuch on the radio (warming my little hands near it), out of one of those "ringed" tupperware bowls, soft pink, green or blue. I couldn't yet easily see over the top of the table from my chair, the decades of finger smudges on the lower cupboards kept me entertained visually while the adults rambled on and on. I distinctly remember asking several times for clarification on what we were eating. Chicken they said, every time. A baby's equivalent of chicken, my ass ran through my head, every time. I saw those rabbits. I fed those rabbits. I'd been scratched to kingdom come (said my grampa) by many of those rabbits. When not being used to move rabbit poop to the strawberries, Grampa let me use the wagon to drag stuff around town. We was intimate.
Then the day came. I returned from my wandering adventures and ran towards the hutches. Stopped short, I saw it hanging right there over the top of the garage door, the left door, waaaaay up there, looking waaaay down at my little stunned self, the face of my favorite bunny. His beautiful-though-lifeless black and white dotted shell now ready to be sold to become decoration, for sure, which I kinda understood. But this was my favorite one. Some kind of stiff, cold, old Dutch retort came my way, Grampa's version of that's life, kid and I was expected to hitch up my big girl panties and ride on outta there. No apologies, no explanations. Life.
At Chicken Dinner that night, I stretched and looked up at those faces and I knew something had changed, something had ended; I could no longer trust these people to tell me the truth.
I've never again been a fan of bunnies; nor adults who lie to kids.
Once, after I'd gathered up my little doll-playing friends on Grampa's porch, I reenacted what I'd seen him do earlier, out of their sight: I stood with my hands on my hips, my face into the wind and announced "Smells like rain" and sat back down. Sho'nuf, it began raining in earnest moments later and I cinched the title as coolest kid in town. For that unbeknownst-to-him assistance, I'll be forever grateful.
Burned into my memory, dinner around the table, Hank Williams Jr. or sumsuch on the radio (warming my little hands near it), out of one of those "ringed" tupperware bowls, soft pink, green or blue. I couldn't yet easily see over the top of the table from my chair, the decades of finger smudges on the lower cupboards kept me entertained visually while the adults rambled on and on. I distinctly remember asking several times for clarification on what we were eating. Chicken they said, every time. A baby's equivalent of chicken, my ass ran through my head, every time. I saw those rabbits. I fed those rabbits. I'd been scratched to kingdom come (said my grampa) by many of those rabbits. When not being used to move rabbit poop to the strawberries, Grampa let me use the wagon to drag stuff around town. We was intimate.
Then the day came. I returned from my wandering adventures and ran towards the hutches. Stopped short, I saw it hanging right there over the top of the garage door, the left door, waaaaay up there, looking waaaay down at my little stunned self, the face of my favorite bunny. His beautiful-though-lifeless black and white dotted shell now ready to be sold to become decoration, for sure, which I kinda understood. But this was my favorite one. Some kind of stiff, cold, old Dutch retort came my way, Grampa's version of that's life, kid and I was expected to hitch up my big girl panties and ride on outta there. No apologies, no explanations. Life.
At Chicken Dinner that night, I stretched and looked up at those faces and I knew something had changed, something had ended; I could no longer trust these people to tell me the truth.
I've never again been a fan of bunnies; nor adults who lie to kids.
2 comments:
nor adult bunnies who lie to kids, for that matter <3
I knew there was something about you Diana.......some cosmic connection.
Ask me about my Ma and the bunny. It explains a little.
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