She Wanted Some More ‘Damn’ Tea…

She Wanted Some More ‘Damn’ Tea…

By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee

 

Photo of a little girl… photo of Gloria Faye Brown Bates at 3 years old… she never knew fear… but then… it was beginning to find her… she just didn’t know what it was… yet.  At this age, she’d just learned a new word… ‘Damn’!

 

At this age, she was becoming aware of her Grandma Alma, George, when they visited.  It was scary there… George sure could holler loud; as loud as his voice was… his hand was just as gentle to a little girl.  She didn’t know then, what she was feeling was such … love for the both.

 

Her Grandma Alma dipped snuff… she wanted to.  Grandma Alma sneezed as she placed a ‘pinch’ between her teeth… inside of her mouth… “Damn”!

 

This little girl loved the sound of that word…. and when she played with her tea set…. on the patch of white sand at home… she would say “damn”!  She got choked on the ‘snuff’… the next thing she knew…

 

“Didn’t I tell you if I caught you saying a bad word, I would wash your mouth out with soap?  Didn’t I”?

 

Her mother held her head near the bathroom sink… the other hand

turned on the water… she made it warm.  She soaped that wash cloth up with Ivory soap… stuck it in this little girl’s mouth… tried to wash that dirty word out of her mouth.

 

She must not could find that ‘dirty word’… because when ‘this little girl who is a big girl’… becomes angry, upset… the first word she will say (after she looks around to see if anyone can hear her :)))… is…. ‘damn’!!!

 

‘She’ continues to use that word if, when she feels the need to.  She earned the right that day her mama washed her mouth out with soap… her mama left that word in there… somewhere!  Now… she can find it… anytime she needs it!  Looking back through time… I know a lot of people who love that word!

 

The photo below is just after I ‘got hold’ of a pair of scissors… I wanted to cut hair; I had seen my uncle cut George’s hair.  I knew I could do it.  I found a pair of scissors… cut my hair, bangs; cut my baby brother’s hair… I don’t know what happened… I can’t remember.  Seems like I heard the word, “damn!”, then…

 

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Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee at age 6… At this age, I was becoming aware of what real fear was… hands, hands, hands.  I was becoming afraid, was afraid of … hands when a man would reach out for me.  I didn’t know why… many years later, I knew….

 

Not only that… I didn’t know that I would be going to Hell… I would be ‘nobody’ any longer.  I would learn how it felt to be made fun of; how it felt to be mistreated… no relief from it either at school, ‘home/Hell’…

 

This was just before… I began to know hate… I learned the word when one of my family members shouted that to me as a child… when I was thrown in Hell at the age of 9.  Hell was a bad place for a child… I learned ‘a lot more dirty’ words… I learned hate; anger… distrust.  I always loved back as quickly as I hated… I only ‘hated when… I had been mistreated’.

 

I forgave… easily.  This little girl wanted to be loved… love would be given one day… the next day it was taken back.  Someone would forget they said they loved her… and mistreat her again.  Life went on…..

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This little girl… Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee… standing in the yard of Hell, looking toward the house that was the doorway/portal to … Hell.  She never knew one day she would be tossed into Hell, left to either ‘sink or swim’ to survive.

 

No one would believe how strong a little naive, innocent girl can learn to be… and not even know that she is… she just ‘is’… she never knew that what she lived in wasn’t the way ‘everyone else’ lived.  She had to make it until she was fourteen to realize how it felt … to live a normal, good life again.

 

There, at her father’s home, it was beautiful… wonderful.  She was dressed in nice clothes, good shoes… she became a beautiful flower… only for two years almost… she lived in a ‘wonderful Hell’… one where she almost lived in silence… her father never spoke to her but, once… he was drinking beer when he did… everyone was gone.

 

That’s okay… this little girl is glad as a big girl… she didn’t know as that little girl she was being prepared for the day she’d… lose her only child; her son, Tommy.

 

Even all the strength she’d gained in her lifetime… wasn’t enough to help her to come through it.  Thank-God, for placing her hero, best friend, husband, Skip in her life… and their two Pups. Without them… she wouldn’t

have known to ‘come back’… how could she?  She didn’t know she was still living…

 

They wouldn’t let her stay in the dark world she’d retreated to… to forever stay…. where she lost the will to ‘be’… anymore.  May 29, 2010… she stopped living… didn’t know she was here…

 

She was a fighter; she wanted to live… loved life.  She forgot all… when her son died.  None of what she went through in life… prepared her to lose her only child.

 

Now… everything is going to be alright… no matter how bad it is, or… can be.  I’ve rediscovered my love for life, found my fighting spirit again.  I’m going to live until… I die.

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She Wanted Some More ‘Damn’ Tea…

A little girl, about four years old, lay in her bed… trembling.  She had waken to a strange sound in the bedroom she, her little brother slept in.

 

She looked over to the bed, her brother was still asleep.  He was just a baby; he didn’t know to wake up… didn’t know something scary happened.

 

There it was again… the little girl sat up quickly, froze as the ‘scratching’ sound came again from the front window!  She was trembling, her little thumb between her teeth.  She was sucking on it, not aware that she was.

 

She tried to call for her mama.  “Mama”…. no sound came from her mouth.  The little girl was afraid, but… what could it be?  At this age she hadn’t had experiences ‘enough’ to know what fear was.  She was learning fast… how it felt… though.

 

Her eyes were wide, her precious little face filled with fear.  Her little lips were open… trying to breathe as her little heart beat fast…

 

The scratching sound came once more… the little girl sprang up from her bed, as fast as a jumping jack ,ran to the bedroom door.  She looked back as her little hand reached to turn the knob.  It was dark, she couldn’t see.

 

“Mama! Mama!”  The little girl screamed, as she ran down the hall to her mother’s bedroom.  “The bogeyman’s going to get me, the bogeyman’s going to get me”!

 

The little girl’s mother, step-father, came rushing through their bedroom door.  The little girl tried to tell them about the noise in the bedroom… but, how can a child who has never experienced fear… put into words… what she is afraid of?

 

Not long before this… the little girl had became afraid of her uncle who babysitted her.  Before that… her step-grandfather…

 

She had no idea of time… how long ago.  As she became older… she ‘knew’…

 

Her mama, step-father, made her get back into bed.  They said it wasn’t anything… “see, there’s nothing in here”.  The little girl was tucked in by her mother, gently kissed on the forehead.  Everything is alright…

 

This began the little girl’s unconscious decision not to tell anyone anything… no one believed her.  She was too young to realize that they didn’t… she’d only reacted to her fear.  Going to mama… was her natural reaction.

 

Everything is alright now, her mama said.  She’d tucked her under her bed covers, kissed her on the forehead.  Then, it must be so.

 

The little girl fell asleep… woke up the next morning.  She didn’t remember she was afraid last night.  She wasn’t old enough to let memories stay in her mind.  She ran, played as usual.

 

While she sat beneath the big, old Oak tree on Elm Street, where she lived… her mama, step-daddy were walking around outside.  She was drinking ‘tea/sand’… from her beautiful tea set.  The sun was shining, the sunlight kissing the white sand here, there.

 

“Look!  Oh, my God!  She did hear something last night!”  The little girl watched with interest… she wasn’t old enough to know … that was her bedroom behind the window they were looking at.

 

She heard them say excitedly, “Look”!  She watched them as they traced with their fingers … long scratches on the nice screen on the window.  The window screens were screens one could see outside from inside…. not see inside from outside.

 

They turned, looked at her.  She felt afraid… of what, she didn’t know.  No one said anything; they walked back to the porch.  She forgot about them…

 

She wanted some more ‘damn’ tea….

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