John Y’s Musings in the Middle: Family Myths

Great fails in family myth making opportunities.

All families need stories that make them better than they really are. The key is that the have to be believable (or willing to be believed) and told by a credible elder of the family.

Usually repeatedly.

When I was about 14 and felt about as confused and insecure as, well, a 14 year old should, I was alone with my grandmother (Mamaw) and struck up a conversation that had great potential.

We were watching TV at her house and she was eating a PB&J sandwich and half paying attention to me. I loved her more than about anyone. She told things like they were. She lived in Muhlenberg County and although she never finished high school, I always felt she was smarter and wiser than my other grandma who was Phi Beta Kappa.

Plus, I was her favorite grandchild.

I’d been hearing about other kids at school who were making straight A’s and were National Merit Scholars and geniuses so on.

“Mamaw,” I asked, “You know how some kids are gifted intellectually?”

“Oh, I suppose. Your Uncle Jim Bob was.” (Jim Bob was her son and she liked him more than even me.), she replied predictably.

“What about the grandchildren, though?” Mamaw?

“What do you mean?” she asked. “Well, when we were younger did any of us seem, you know, kinda gifted or especially bright or special in some way?”

My grandmother took a bite of her sandwich and without ever looking away from the TV responded lovingly (in her own way), “Well, none of you were retarded or anything like that, if that’s what you mean.”

That ended the conversation as well as my hopes of being gifted at anything. I never got to tell her that wasn’t what I meant. But I always loved her—even after that. And sometimes the gift of loving candor is better than being gifted at some random skill anyway.