Day #10 Writing Through Covid-19: Bears in the Barn

When I was in high school, my dad's mom lived with us for a time: months? years?  She was a benign, incontinent presence in my self-centered adolescent life. (Remember, I was a hateful teen.)

Grandma Berryhill liked to play Dominoes and Probe, but she cheated, and everyone knew it. She also emptied the sugar bowl into her coffee, so my mother used a very small and near-empty sugar bowl. Our primary bathroom was occupied by this clunky commode that inconvenienced and disgusted me, the oh-so-busy la-tee-da teenager.

I have wonderful memories of my other grandparents, and I am now sorry that I have so few positive memories of Grandma Berryhill's time with us. I do remember her hands were softer than a puppy's underbelly. I must have touched her hands. 

At night Grandma Berryhill "felt mice" in her bed. She would call out to my mother across the hall, and mom would come strip down the sheets to prove there were no mice. Sometimes this happened several times a night.

One night Grandma cried out in terror: "There's a bear in the barn!" My mother tried to assure her the "barn" was our garage, and we were in a city far from bears.

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This morning my mom said she'd had a rough night. "I kept thinking your dad needed a clean white shirt, and I couldn't find one," she said. 

A lost white shirt is not exactly a bear in the barn, but both women were crafting nightmares by drawing on the realities of their younger lives.

It makes me wonder what my eventual night terrors will be:

Raccoons on the porch.

Children in my bed.

Missing stacks of student writing.
My elderly parents, lost in my basement, needing care. 

Enough.
Stay well.
Write.

Allison