Be Humble
“Your father wants to talk to you,” my grandmother said, handing me the telephone.
I knew that this was no mere check-in or “I miss you” call. There would be none of the jokes or light banter of a father at home 800 miles away catching up with his best and only daughter. For a casual chat, no one ever passed the receiver to you like that, easing back like Grandma did to give you a semblance of privacy while also monitoring your reaction closely.
Each summer, my brother and I headed down south to spend time with our grandmother. We would pack suitcases and grocery bags full of stuff we thought we absolutely had to have for the long, hot days ahead. At the time, neither of us appreciated the serenity of small town life away from the hustle and bustle of home. We did not desire the chance to simply sit with nothing to do and nowhere to go. We were kids, and summers were for Red Rover and bike riding and “Tag! You’re it.” Not the quiet stillness of a house on a hill with air conditioning reserved for the company we no longer were once our father hit the highway to head back to Chicago without us.
Those weeks together in our grandmother’s house bonded me and my brother closer. Though our sentence was pleasant with three square meals of southern cooking, figs off the tree behind the house, and trips to Natchez, my brother and I were often miserable, and when that misery was at its highest, we whispered. Plans for a walk uptown were really undercover trips to the pharmacy for scoops of ice cream Grandma would never allow before dinner. Because my brother was the cute one, he would do the smiling and get the lady at the counter to give us three scoops for the price of one. We would always stop by the post office to get the mail just in case Dad had sent more money and to conceal our illicit activity.
But one day, the whispering turned vicious. We decided to make fun of our grandmother to her face because (of all things) she pronounced the word “humble” without the /h/. As old as she was, didn’t she know, we reasoned with our sophisticated, pre-adolescent brains, that that was not how you were supposed to say that word? And we laughed. Hard. At her expense.
Well, my grandmother was stoic in that moment, just like she had been when we stumbled upon her with an ax in her hands chopping up a rattlesnake who dared slither into her yard. Just like she had been when a group of wasps built their home in the gutter of hers, and having only an ancient fly swatter and a can of who-knows-what poison, she got busy defending, all by herself, the house she and our grandfather had paid for. Just like she had been when she realized one dinner date in that the man who had tried courting her for months after our grandfather had died only wanted to move into her house, drive her cars, and spend her money. Yes, there she was, enduring the ridicule of her grandchildren without ever showing one hint of how she really felt.
“That’s my mother,” Dad had said. His voice was firm and unwavering. In my mind, I could see the furrow of his brows and the finger pointed while deftly hanging onto the cigarette undoubtedly hovering over an ash tray. “Do you hear me?” he questioned. “Huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s my mother,” he repeated. His tone got so heavy that I struggled under the weight of it. “Nobody talks to my mother like that.”
There was no further questioning. He simply laid into me for having the gall to say anything to his mother that would cause her any type of upset. There would be no joshing about her. No digs whether veiled or otherwise. His mother would have nothing but total respect, and his children would have hell to pay if they ever even thought about treating her like that again.
I choked down the wail rushing to my throat and tried to catch the tears before they flopped on the table Grandma had just cleared from dinner. I got the message. It was loud. It was clear.
My father had definite rules about the kitchen and school work. We had learned the hard way that he would tolerate no fighting between the two of us. But this rule, shouted through the telephone from 800 miles a way, let me know that of all the people my dad respected, which was probably everyone I had ever seen him interact with, my grandma, his mother, was tops.
I loved my grandmother, but in that moment, I saw her through my dad’s eyes. She belonged to him as much as my own mother belonged to me. What I had done to his mother was downright disrespectful, mean, and hurtful. The tongue lashing I received cut me down so small. I was humiliated, but most importantly, I was sorry. I did not know how harmful my words had been. I did not know she would have a secret conversation with my dad, and the fact that she even had to sickened me to my stomach. I knew better, and boredom or any other emotion was never an excuse for ill treatment.
It’s been over 30 years, and that is still one of the greatest regrets of my life. Whenever I see or hear the word humble, whenever I say it or write it, I think of that time long ago when my grandmother tried to teach me the lesson gently, but I insisted on learning it the hard way.
“Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5, KJV)
Memos from the Middle 