You’ve Never Heard of Chesaning

I love April for many reasons. I got married in April. I became a mother in April. My birthday is in early May, which means April is practically my birth month, which means I can start saying, “Guess how many more days until my birthday!” over and over until even the kids try to stab me. So I’ve been trying to write an anniversary post and I’ve been trying to write a happy birthday Lena and Liberty post, but I keep being distracted by April ghosts.

My paternal grandmother, Lena, died when my dad was 14, and I’ve always pined for her. The only time I ever played with a Ouija board, it was her I was after. When I wondered if there was a heaven, it was her I was after. All of my first big questions revolved around her. I knew that, had she not died, my dad never would have moved to Chesaning and met my mom, making my existence impossible. I would ask myself, Is it better that she died so I could live or would it be better if she lived and then had different grandchildren? Of course I always said it would be better if she had lived because, after all, Santa could’ve been listening to my thoughts and I didn’t want him to know I was so selfish. But those imaginary “other” grandchildren she would’ve had? In my mind, they totally ended up sucking and then it was Grandma Lena who was pining for ME!

Anyway, my maternal grandmother is a very special kind of crazy. You know, the kind that translates into, “Wow, you’re really an evil bitch.” So I spent a lot of time as a girl imagining what it would be like if Grandma Lena were alive. I put her up on this pedestal of perfect grandmotherliness and I was always greedy for her. I can remember being relentless with my questioning about her from a very young age. How did she laugh? Did she wear an apron? Would she give us candy? Would she like us? My fascination with her didn’t end with my intense need for a grandmother who would love me. I was drawn to her by the tragedies she endured. First, she didn’t get married until she was 36 and when I was a little KISS-loving princess, to me that was tragic. I didn’t know until I was an adult that she turned down proposals and owned her own car and traveled all over and things like that. One of her sisters told me with a wink, “We weren’t even sure she was the marrying kind!” So she suprised everyone and married Carl Clement on April 23, 1947. Ten years later, on April 22, 1957 when my dad was 8 and his brother was 6, Carl died of a heart attack at work. April, you give and you take away.

Lena might have been used to April’s pissiness by 1957 because on April 12, 1948 she gave birth to a stillborn baby girl named Jane Marie. On the same date, exactly one year later, she gave birth to my dad. Many of my childhood imaginings of her had to do with the fact that every April 12th she had to contend with the warring emotions of grief for her stillborn daughter, and the bliss that was her healthy son. Even as a kid, I knew that there was probably no pain like losing a child and I couldn’t imagine what it would’ve been like to go through another pregnancy that was due to end around the exact same time as that tragedy, not 2 or 5 or 7 years before, but only 1 year before. And then to give birth on the actual anniversary of the firstborn’s death? How? Seriously, how? I can tell you for a fact that the fear alone would have driven me to a mental institution. And then to be widowed with 2 small boys on the day before her 10th wedding anniversary? That’s just, I don’t know. I wish I had a better vocabulary but as I am, in my heart of hearts, trailer trash, all I can come up with is “bullshit.” It’s total bullshit.

So April? I’m glad you’re making with the sunny because you have a lot of esplainin’ to do and I demand that you atone for my grandmother’s roller-coaster of emotions by drying up the ground at the park and making pretty flowers bloom. Pretty ones! Not marigolds. She carried a lily in the center of her wedding bouquet. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for some early lilies.