My memory is not what it use to be, but what I can remember is very vivid, and makes me smile and makes me cry. We visited Grandma every summer. Of course, I was usually ambivalent about going because I didn’t knew what to expect from those summer visits. Grandma was not the stereotypical grandma that wore her hair pulled and pinned in bun or had so many tight curls that look as if her head was squeezed. Nor did she bake home cookies, pies , knit or sew. My Grandma was real, just gave you just enough affection to show you love and just as many ass whooping to prove she didn’t play. 
Road trips to Perry were pretty uneventful.The drive alone was enough to make a kid crazy, me in particular. Three hours was like an eternity and it only fueled my bad attitude about being forced to go in the first place. I could not understand why my mother made me go to grandma’s house. I wasn’t stupid so I never asked for fear of being beat and I just took it with stride and made the best of my summers. Now looking back I would not have changed anything because if not for those summer vacation, I would not be partly who I am today. Really, what was there to complain about, I slept most the way to Perry and once I got there, I was on vacation right? The small town warmth brought back so many memories from the previous summer and the smell of Buckeye permeated the air in Taylor
The excitement was overwhelming and my patience would run thin when we finally made it to town but my mother slowly drove down Bacon street towards Grandma’s house. I would sit up in my seat and stretch my neck as we got closer to the house but it was difficult to see the house because it sat back of the road. My grandparents never disappointed, as to be expected both Grandma B and Grand daddy Ephriam were sitting on the porch in their rockers smoking their cigars. She would stand up as we pulled into the dirt drive way and walked to the edge of the porch with her cigarette in tow and a hand on her hip.
“Yall had me worried; I expected yall a few hours back. What happened?” she would say.
“Nothing Barbara, we started a little later than expected and stopped a few times to gas up.” My momma said as she walked to towards the house
“Well, I was worried. Yall hungry?”
“Hey grandma.” I said carrying all my stuff I brought on the trip.
We never really hugged, it more like a half hug but I knew that was her way.
“Hey grand daddy.” I said leaning into him as sat in the rocker never really moving in my direction.
“Ah yea, how you” he said in a husky raspy voice from years of smoking.
We finally made. I opened the screen door and walked into the house. To a little kid, the house was huge, and scary, yet it resembled a mansion in comparison to the apartment I lived in with my mother. I would hunch my shoulders and walk towards my room down the long hallway to the first room on the left. I would stare into the small over crowded room with the two over sized twin beds that left very little wiggle room. I sat on the bed furthest away from the door and inhaled the stale scent of the room, I thought even during the day the house was dark and intimidating. However during the day it was alright but at night when I sleeping in a room alone it was the scariest place ever. The last thing I wanted even though I was the eldest was to admit to my siblings that I was afraid of the dark. The darkness suffocated me and I always felt alone and helpless. Sometimes I boldly stared into the darkness and dared whatever was there to bother with me, I dared the darkness to hurt me, a little kid. After hours and hours of staring, I smelled coffee and cigarettes, the birds chirping outside my window, then the screen door would open and close with bang and then I knew the darkness had passed and my Grandma was up preparing for the day.
My grandma was everything to me although I never really showed it. Growing up you would not think that she was a grandmother because she was very trendy, sported her wig as if it were her own and her mind was sharp as a tack. She was definitely not the stereotypical grandmother and I definitely appreciated that about her. She interacted with us and did some typical grandmotherly things with like grew a garden of fresh vegetables and let up pick the peas for dinner, cook soulful meals, and took us to church regularly. She wasn’t a real affectionate and the hugs and kisses were few and far between but she was a lot of fun.
I miss….
The innocent nudity~
The front part of the house was hotter than hades most days in the summer. There was only one air conditioning unit and it was located in the den. The heat was suffocating and the windows were always open, as well as the front door but it did very little to stop the heat. The screen door was no help because it trapped us in with the heat. Grandma would walk around the house freely with only cotton shorts and slippers. Grandma had no shame in her game, I mean, NO BRA, NO SHIRT…of course with Granddaddy being the man he was in the community town folk would drop by for one reason or another and it always seemed that they showed up right at the moment she was walking past the kitchen into the den hanging loose! PEEP SHOW
“Hey Tillman ….” An uninvited guest would stand on the porch peeping into the house.
“OH SHIT!” grandma would yell and grab her breast and take off running down the hall for some clothes. She immediately returned apologetically but was never embarrassed. I giggled
I miss….
Being embarrassed at church during service when the choir sang and Grandma would be the loudest one in the congregation singing with so much passion, but so off key. I would stare at her and wonder if she knew her voice bad. She butchered ‘At The Cross’…..
At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!
Today when we sing this song during worship, I see and hear my grandma singing off key.
Thanksgiving. It became our family tradition for everyone to meet in Perry for Thanksgiving weekend. There is no place like home~
Home cooked meals...greens, ox tails, yams, corn bread and fried fish
Sitting in the den complaining about them hogging the only TV to watch baseball all day
Grandma trying to get my attention by calling me everyone's name in the family until she remembered mine
Grandma calling my mother and telling on me because I refused to clean the kitchen because I living up to being on vacation
Borrowing her Harlequin Romance novels
Chasing me around with a switch because I talked back
Pulling the heads off the fried fish, she caught on her fishing trips then coming home to cook them for us
Burning my scalp with the hot comb to prepare for church
Waking me up at 6am for church and service started at 9:30
Grandma sitting on the porch in her favorite rocker, with her left hanging over the arm and cigarette ashes piled up on the ground around her
The smell of the huge tree in the front yard that provided shade to the porch
The $50 checks for Christmas
Her eating always eating the leftovers off my plate
I miss my Grandma~
Grandma could be very meddlesome and sometimes overbearing and tended to push people around and away because she was honest. She said some of hurtful things. She tried to be nice but sometimes I think she just couldn't help being stuck in her ways. But she would not have been who she was to me, if not everything I shared with her in my life ~My Grandma
R.I.P
Barbara Jean Tillman
December 18, 1932 to April 29, 2007
I miss….
I miss….
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