Birds of a Feather

Rummaging through the overstuffed closet, Nella wondered to herself how she got roped into this. She should have followed her brother's advice, get in, hug everyone, make up an excuse, get out. Nella just couldn’t cut herself off from the family like that, especially not in this situation, it was a funeral for goodness sake. Her Gran had passed away from “old age” as the doctors described it, but Nella thought it had to be something to do with her dementia. 

Gran just kind of lost it one day, like a switch flipped in her head. She started doing crazy things that were totally out of character for her. My southern belle of a grandmother exchanged her tight lipped smiles and her patronizing but sweet “bless your heart” for the cold hard truth. She would tell you flat out what she thought and then just walk away! Not paying any mind to whether it made you cry or made you mad, she said what she said. She started leaving the house with curlers in her hair and her housecoat bursting at the seams, struggling to contain her full bodice. Gone were the days of prim and proper for her, she’d go about her own business and tell others to kick rocks if they didn’t like it. 

Near the end of her life, Gran would just drop off the radar for longer and longer periods of time. She refused to carry a cell phone, so we had no way of reaching her. Mom freaked out the first time she disappeared, she did a full blown silver alert and everything. Well when the authorities finally tracked Gran down; she came back ready to fight. That’s the first time I ever heard her swear, or more accurately, swear according to Gran’s standards. 

“Don’t you piss on my head and tell me it’s raining!,” Gran’s voice bellowed through the house, catching my ear and causing a look of admiration and shock. She was really telling Mama straight off! “I’m a grown-ass woman and I’ll do whatever the Hell I want!” Mama tried pleading and reasoning, but Gran would have none of it. She had made her peace and she would not be swayed. She stormed out the screen door and back to her house to pack for her next escapade. Mama just stood there in disbelief, mouth agape, wondering at what demon must be possessing her mother. 

“What are you smiling about over there? Get to work, we gotta finish cleaning this house out before our flight this Friday.” Mama’s words snapped me back to reality, sweating like a sinner in church, staring at a row of dickies in Gran’s closet. Going through mounds of clothes, shoes, and church hats, I find a library book that Gran must’ve checked out and forgot to return. “The not so subtle art of self-deconstruction;” what an odd title. Definitely not something Gran would read, seeing as she mostly dabbled in historical Christian romance novels. I stow the book in my satchel so I can return it to the library later that day and get back to work. 

Falling into the guest bed, I am exhausted, but my mind won’t let me sleep. There’s an itch in my head that I just can’t scratch. Why did Gran act so wild in her last days? What changed? Was I bound for the same type of dementia-fueled, erratic behavior? I try to scroll through my social media on my phone but there isn’t any service. Gran still has dial-up so wifi is definitely not an option. I grab the book I found earlier and begin to read. The pages are littered with comments scrawled in Gran’s handwriting. She had defaced public property! Her words were wild with emotion, scribbled quickly, as if she was scared she would lose the momentum of her thoughts. As I am reading I find a section that was obviously read over and over again. The page is wrinkled and the margins are full with Gran’s commentary.  On the adjacent page, a single quote has been highlighted: “The baby bird is forced from the nest at a young age by their mother. They must fall and learn to fly. If not, they will surely perish and never reach the potential that nature intended them for.” Next to the quote Gran wrote a single word: “Nella.”

Now I was fully invested. What about that quote made me come to Gran’s mind? I’ll admit we were closer than the other grandkids, me being her namesake and all, but we never went too deep in our conversations beyond pleasantries and old stories. 

Gran always did understand me in a way that no one else could. She just got how my brain worked, we were two “birds of a feather” as she would say. I continued reading through the book, looking for my name in the margins, but it was only by that single quote. What was Gran trying to tell me? 

That night Gran visited me in a dream. She walked up to me with a wide smile on her face. Positively glowing, she wrapped me in her arms and told me she loved me. I asked her about the book. “It’s positively thrilling isn’t it?!” 

Thrilling was not the word that came to mind while reading her commentary in the margins. It was like she was battling everything she ever knew. She had some harsh commentary on every aspect of living that any self-respecting southern woman would consider the gold standard for a life well-lived. 

“I don’t know Gran, it felt a bit like one of those psycho-babble books that hipsters are always reading.” She frowned. “It’s nothing like that at all. That book opened my eyes to all that I had been missing out on. It’s a shame that I was 65 when I read it. So much time wasted.”

Time wasted? She had lived a life full of love. She had raised children, who were successful adults (more or less) that had left and started families of their own. Gran was revered in social circles for being a woman of poise, who always knew the right words to say and things to do.

“What do you mean?” I implore; confused by her disappointment in what most would call a life well-lived. “I took everything at face value, I did what I was told, and I never questioned why I did what I felt I was supposed to do.” “And?” Now I’m really thrown, she’s upset because she was a good person? “And I should have branched out more, I should have challenged myself and what I thought was the standard of living.”

“Did you find the quote I highlighted for you?” 

“Well yes, so you think Mom should kick me out of the house when I start community college next month?”

“Of course! Get out of your nest. Get out of that town. Go into the world. Break some rules. Discover the world on your own terms. Live for yourself and not for the person you think everyone wants you to be.” 

And just like that, she was gone, replaced by the sound of Mama clearing out the guest bedroom closet, a not-so-subtle wake up call to get out of bed. That whole day I was in a haze. Trying to recall her words, and impatiently waiting for bedtime so I could re-read the book and try to understand what she meant. 

That night I poured over the book with fresh eyes. Pulling each nugget of truth from the pages, trying to see it through Gran’s point of view. Stop being polite, tell it like it is. That was her first commentary after the first chapter. Each chapter leads to a new revelation that Gran summarizes on the last page of the section: if you want to leave then what’s stopping you?, why do you think the way you think?, what if you’re wrong? Her questions posed, but not answered in the pages of the book. 

The next day we all attend the reading of her will. She leaves her earthly belongings to the family, doling them out as fairly as possible. She left me the library book and a savings account she had created for me. But she put a parameter on the account, she said it was only to be spent on things that truly bring me joy. Mama’s eyes grew wide at the balance of the account, and she joyfully squealed that we could finally afford for me to go to college. Her joy was punctuated by the harsh fact that I would have to return the library book since it wasn’t Gran’s to give.

I pondered for a moment, then I recalled the glint in Gran’s eye from my dream. I thought about her wild questioning of her true self, and I made my decision. I rose from the table, told Mama and Daddy that  I loved them, and that I would be in touch. I tucked the book into my satchel and walked out the door. I hear Mama calling after me to return the book, and I just nodded and kept walking.

What makes me happy, what brings ME joy? I have all this and more to think about as I ride the greyhound to Malibu beach. I had never been, and I had always wanted to go. I crack open the book to re-read it and add my own commentary in my journal. Perhaps Gran and I were truly two birds of a feather. Now is the time for this little bird to soar out of the nest into the possibilities of this world.