I never expected that when Nana, who was the glue that held us all together, passed away we’d all be closer than we had been in a very long time. She wasn’t here anymore but her magnetic power was still at work. I met more family members that week, put more faces with names I’d heard all my life, than I could take in. So I started taking notes. Sitting around in Nana’s house the week before she died, I started writing things down, and I continued all the way through the following week. Cousins, aunts, uncles, long-time family friends—they poured in and out of the house all week. And everyone told stories. I don’t think I had laughed as much as I did that week all year. It was healing. I learned my very unique family heritage one tale at a time, and somehow I drew strength from the weakness we all felt. My moment to tell a story would come later on, and it would take more strength than I had in me alone to get through it. I can’t begin recount all the things I heard, the things I wrote—but I’ll share just one.
Grandpa’s gun made him notorious. On his way home from work one payday, he got off the bus and began walking across the bridge. In what turned out to be a very bad idea, a group of my cousins, his grandsons and great-nephews, had decided to wait for him where they knew he’d get off. They knew it was pay day and planned to jump up behind him and pretend to rob him. According to plan, one yelled, “Hey you!” from behind, and without even glancing over his shoulder, Grandpa whirled around shooting that pistol towards every one of them! They all ducked for cover, astonished that he’d shot at them. When Grandpa stopped and realized it was them, he looked them in the eyes and said, “You never jump a man on payday.”
What’s your story?
10 Things to Think About When Telling Your Story, coming next.
