Sci Fi & Fantasy / Personal App

At the age of 12, I confronted my mother about my grandmother’s death. “How did she die?” I asked her. A pained look crossed my mother’s face. “That’s something to ask your father, hunny.” She sent me down to the basement where my father usually spent his time. A smile crossed his face as I entered the room. “Hey Janet, do you need something?” I hesitantly said yes and forced myself to ask the question. “Daddy, how did your mom die?” I stuttered, stopped, and started again. “I mean, it wasn’t a heart attack, was it.” The smile slid off his face and left no trace of its existence. His eyes registered sadness and I temporarily wished I hadn’t asked. My father brought me over to his workbench, picked up his beer, and started to speak.
        “This is not a happy story, do you think you can handle that?” Nod. “Good. Wait until I’m done if you’re going to say anything.” Another nod.
        “It happened when I was little. One day, my dad took me and my sister, your aunt, down to the basement. He sat us on the washer and dryer and lifted a loaded shotgun in level with my head.” Breathing slows. Eyes blink. “My father yelled up the stairs, ‘Janet, if you don’t get down here right now, I’m going to shoot the children.’ My mother slowly walked down the basement stairs and calmed him down. Over the next few hours, he agreed that he needed help, and left for the hospital.
        “He was gone for a month or two, not long. One day I came home from school and he was there. He was home.
        “The next day I was out with my friend playing in the fields when we heard a noise. ‘There’s someone screaming again,’ I said. It was the country; you could hear it all the time. We thought nothing of it. Eventually, I went home. I walked in to find many people in my house and my Grandparents and sister crying on the couch.
        “Apparently, my father went to work that day. When he got there, the other workers joked around with him saying, ‘I kept your wife company when you were gone!’ My father took them seriously.” Breathing stops. “He came home and just put his hands around her neck. My sister smashed a salad plate over his head to try and stop him. It didn’t faze him. There was nothing she could do.”
        I stood like a statue. Not breathing, not thinking, just listening. “I was nine at the time, my sister was eleven. You’re named after my mother, your grandmother. ”  He finished with a few details of what happened to his father, and how his father never knew that me, my little sister, or my mother existed. I stood in shock, not moving. He eventually nodded his head to tell me he was done. I attempted to nod back. I walked mechanically up to my room. Up the steps. Breathe. Up more steps. Lay down. Cry.
        I’m not sure why I cried. Maybe I it was because I would never get to meet my grandmother. I would never get to know the woman that I was named after, the woman who’s death eventually led to my birth and gave me my name. Maybe I cried because I had never valued my name. I was made fun of as having an ‘old person name’, and I agreed. Now, I would never choose any other name. My name is not only a part of me, but it is part of my grandmother. It is one of the most special things I have.
        The message may be small, but it is still important. My father’s story of his mother and my name taught me to look beneath the surface. My name had never meant much before. But knowing what had happened, it made me feel honored to have that name. For my father to want to name me after the mother that he never got to grow up with. It showed me that there is something deeper than a name. I know now that a name or an outer appearance is not significant. But behind every name or person, there is a feeling. And in the end, it is that feeling that holds every importance.

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