Mother talks about her father

On the way back to work yesterday, I called my mother from my car.

I realized that I had forgotten my grandfather's name again, and I wanted to get it right.

"General," she said.

"What?"

"General. His first name was, General."

"Oh, that's right. It was taken from some Attorney General, or something like that, wasn't it?"

"Well, that's what June thought. There was somebody real famous then, a lawyer named, "General something," and June thinks that Grandma and Grandpa thought his first name was General."

"That's right. They call the Attorney General of a State, "General SoandSo." Didn't he have a middle name, too?"

"Yes, Rufus. Didn't like it much, but he used it because it was his name. He went by his initials, sometimes. G.R."

"What were his brother's names? Wasn't one of them Perry?"

"Yes, there was Perry. Perry's the one they always favored because he was the oldest. It was just the way it was back then. Everything went to the oldest. And there was Wetzel. They sent Daddy away, and he made his life with an uncle. He had a son Daddy's age."

"Why did they do that?"

"I don't know. Daddy wouldn't talk about it. He wouldn't talk about his mother or his father. He talked about Grandpa Arrington, and Momma's family, but he didn't talk about Grandpa Gilbert. They knew each other, Grandpa Gilbert and Grandpa Arrignton. And I had the feeling that Grandpa Arrington didn't much like Grandpa Gilbert because of how he treated Daddy. Took that horse away from his, you know, and gave it to Uncle Perry. Daddy went to college when he was at his uncle's, and he needed that horse to go to school in the wintertime. But when he visited Grandma and Grandpa, they took it from him and gave it to Perry. Daddy never got over that. And he never went to see Grandma or Grandpa again. They came to see him years later when Daddy was dying. That was in 1952 or 53. Perry brought 'em. But Grandpa Gilbert wouldn't get out of the car. Wanted Daddy to come to see him. Didn't want to cross the railroad tracks. Don't know what happened to that house now. Probably burned down. Daddy was bedridden then. He couldn't get up to go see him."

That house sat up against a hillside. Train tracks ran between it and the road so you had to climb over the train tracks to get to the house.

John, Thursday, June 24, 2010

Kristina and Maia talk about adoption

Kristina told me about her bedtime conversation with Maia.
She said that Maia said she loved her even more than her Kazakh mother because her Kazakh mother had been too busy to take care of her.
She said that she was glad that we had gotten there, that there had been four other couples but they had gotten babies.
"Babies are all cute,yeah?" Maia had said, as she often did.
We wondered, when Kristina recounted this to me, if Maia has memories of being considered by other couples. It was true that others had passed on her because of the ear.
"Don't give me away," Maia said.
"Maia, we worked so hard to get you, we're not going to give you away. You were an expensive baby," Kristina said, teasing her.
She wanted to know how much she had cost.
"Maia, we didn't buy you like a piece of candy."
How did she get that idea, Kristina wanted to know.
I told her about a time that Maia had raised the issue in the kitchen--about a year and a half ago.
"How do you get them?" she had wanted to know. She was talking about adopted babies.
"Do you buy them?"
We just got back this past weekend from Maia's third operation. She has a real ear now, if a little flat and swollen. I lost my USB cable on the trip, or I would put up pics. I've ordered another one, and will put up pics when it gets in.
John, Monday, June 14, 2010