Thursday, October 1, 2009

Balls

The other day, Rational mentioned Planters' Cheese Balls.

Do you remember those? They came in a can and were half salty processed cheese, half crunchy puffed corn, half msg, and half pure crack cocaine.

I loved those things. They were evil.

But thinking of them got me thinking of the first time I ever ate them. My brother, sister and I had been dumped at the neighbors' house. For the first time in our young lives we were spending the night at the home of someone not related to us WITHOUT our parents.

I don't remember much about these neighbors. I was nine years old at the time and my attention was on other things: the novelty of sleeping in a waterbed, sitting on the floor in a strange livingroom watching Godzilla movies and eating Cheese Balls and (for once) NOT fighting with David or Jo.

What I've never thought about before now is WHY we were dumped at our neighbors' house. I have a vauge memory of Mom and Dad dropping us off one afternoon with our jammies and nothing else. And then they were gone.

Only now do I realize the significance of that odd sleepover. The year I was nine was the year my grandmother died. I know that she suffered multiple heart attacks over the course of several months (I remember her once showing me the staples STAPLES in her chest)

So, what I remember as a novel little mini-adventure was probably just one of many hellish nights my mother spent worrying whether her own mother would live or die and then making the ultimate decision to pull the plug on all hope of her mother ever waking up again.

1 comment:

Terri said...

Or it was one night she spent, holding her mother's hand, sharing stories, taking the time to be with her mother without interruption and without fear that her children weren't cared for.

When my mother died, it was from cancer. Sometimes slipping into the next world, whatever one believes that might be, is better than how they currently exist. Oh, it's not easy but you just know that's how it's suppose to be.

Your mother gave you another childhood memory that you should cherish b/c your grandmother probably got to rest in peace with your mother by her side fully focused on their relationship. I'm sure your mother cherished that bit of time as well.