Minna

I've been thinking about my grandparents, Minna and Lou. My mother had a terrible relationship with them. My parents portrayed them as villans and as the reason for every single one of my mothers problems. To this day I still can't figure this out. True? Not true? All I know is that my first cousins were really close with my grandparents and my sister and I weren't because we weren't allowed to be. 

I remember going to Florida and the terrible fights that would ensue between my parents and them.  My mother loved fighting. Living in the Boxing Ring of Life made her feel alive, but, this was no way to live.

Minna popped into my head the other day when I was in the car with Andy and the kids going to the airport to drop them off. I was sitting in the back next to Ari, and I couldn't stop kissing his arms and hands and smiling at him with glassy eyes. I wasn't sure exactly when I'd see him again. I think maybe he thought I was a little crazy, just like I thought my grandmother was crazy when I was six and she'd kiss my arms and hands on the way to the airport. She'd have glassy eyes under blue eye shadow, and she'd give me butterfly kisses with her eyelashes.

I realized Saturday how she felt all those years ago. She wasn't crazy. She just wasn't sure when she was going to see me again. She was smitten and attached and there was all this noise around our relationship that made it so hard to have one. 

I remember how her cardigan would sit on her shoulders when the air conditioning in the car was too much for her.  Her tears would fall and immediately absorb into her sleeve as she looked out the window.  I understand now about wanting to get a few more strokes of that soft baby skin and a few more kisses of those hands that are now just losing their baby pudge. I realize how much she loved me.