Friday, April 8, 2016

MY GRANDMOTHER


 My grandmother with my daughter. (1974)
  She raised me.  Also, took care of my daughter for two years.



When I was twenty something
I stopped wearing a bra.
It was symbolically burned
as sign of liberation.
I attended groups to raise
my consciousness enough
to never be like her,
a woman with no liberal aspirations.

When she was in her twenties
she worked in order to feed
four children, the burden
her husband ignored while he
drank his earnings with whores.
After the fire, that killed
one of her kids, she suffered more.
Until she raged against the condemnation
of a woman who fought against her own subjugation.
She left her little country, her husband too,
to work, to save, to establish new rules
in a different world where she was almost a slave.
But she forced her family's transformation.

When I knew her, she was a housewife
who took care of grandkids like me.
Her husband, now sober, worked responsibly. 
He loved her.

I loved her too, but in my twenties,
in my ignorance, my arrogance
I judged she knew nothing about
the struggle to be free. 













13 comments:

  1. What a wonderful woman, selfless and filled with love. This is a touching tribute.

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  2. Ha, isnt that the truth, when we are young? and now we look back and see she struggled harder than anyone. I love this story of your grandmother, Myrna.

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  3. Amazing the things we don't know until years later. She probably did not want you to know anything of her difficulties. Why live in those days when she had such a wonderful life by then?

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  4. She's an incredibly strong and brave woman. Such a heartfelt tribute.

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  5. I know just what you mean about making those kinds of judgments when we're young women. It takes a long time before we can identify that daily love and care as its own type of quiet strength.

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  6. A heartfelt tribute to your Grandmother, obviously a very strong and brave woman. It's so good that you came to regonize her struggle and pay this tribute to her.

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  7. Oh youth, we knew it all we thought. A powerful story of strength. Thanks for sharing your grandmother with us.

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  8. OH, that last stanza. How true, how true. I love your use of subtle and internal rhyme here.

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  9. Yes, it takes some growing up and few rough spots to help us see. Wonderful lesson here. You Grandma was a great woman.

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  10. It's so good that you fully appreciate her now.

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  11. the pride of youth, tempered by time ~

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  12. So true.. Liberation always begin from where you are ... She seemed a formidable force.. Wonderful to see how you understood her in the end.

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