My Family
I had a violent childhood; not the kind the neighbours could hear, or even that my parents knew about…
It was a violence I experienced on my own, though I couldn’t understand why. It seemed strange to me
that no one could see my grandfather’s hand down my pants, even when we were on the veranda, in
plain view of the kitchen window. I now understand that people really only see what they can handle at
any given moment; that “seeing” isn’t, “believing”, but an exercise in forgetting.
I was a baby when grandpa crawled inside and stretched out my skin like a too-tight sweater. I grew up
with a foul-smelling, six-foot tall alcoholic pedophile, straining against the confines of my little girl self and
no one seemed to notice.
Of course, there’s more to my family than incest. There are stories of love, too, and when I’m old I
want to remember them well. My other Grandfather was a wonderful man, and I sometimes feel that my
painful experiences have shoved his memory aside.
I remember being lifted in his arms to reach the pull cord of a Christmas-time bell that played, “Rudolph
the Red Nosed Reindeer”. Every year it hung from his living room ceiling, and each time we visited
during the holidays he would scoop me up with a tobacco-scented flourish and let me do the honours.
The bell itself came from the ‘50s, and was brass coloured and solid. The cord always offered some
resistance, like it didn’t want to play that damn song again.
Music was an important part of visiting my Grandparents. I still remember putting on recitals with
Grandma. She would take me over to her dressing table, paint my nose with bright red lipstick, and
announce to Grandpa that I was the “Red Nosed Clown”. As part of our act I would make up songs on
the piano, then Grandma would show me some moves from her days as a Vaudeville dancer. She would
hold my hand, and guide me through an improvised chorus line routine, all the while singing, “Pop Goes
the Weasel”.
When Grandma died, her bedroom remained exactly as it was; the dressing table firmly planted by the
window, the piano opposite her bed. On the wall by the door hung a painting of Jesus; not the PG-13
Jesus often seen in the company of angels and sheep, but the full-on bloodied Catholic Jesus, complete
with thorns and a look of guilt-causing sorrow. That picture used to scare the crap out of me, especially
the eyes which seemed to either open or close, depending on the light.
When it was time for me to go to bed, though, I always felt safe. Grandpa would heat bricks wrapped in
towels to put at our feet if it was cold. The house had no furnace, only two big natural gas stoves that
pumped out an oily heat too thick to climb the stairs. My brother and I would snuggle into twin beds
under the eaves, and fall asleep to the mingled sounds of TV murder mysteries and Muskoka pines
blowing in the wind.
When I was 13, Grandpa approached me with the knowledge of what my other grandfather had done.
He apologized to me. He wanted me to know that not all men are bad. I wish I could tell him now that
he had already proven that to me.
JennIFER MARR: