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Contra Costa Marketplace - Dec 2015

Confessions of an Elderly Man Years ago, when my grandma reached her 90th birthday, four generations of our New Jersey African- American family took our matriarch to a local Chinese restaurant to celebrate her birthday. Three generations were actually living in my parent’s home at the time, including my mother and father, my grandma and my brother’s youngest son who was a teenager. I flew in from Oakland, California, to celebrate granny’s great event. Although Nanna could physically get around on her own, everyone in our New Jersey household was sensitive to grandma’s needs when we washed her clothes, helped her dress, served her meals on a tray as she routinely sat watching the game shows on television; held her arm when she walked up and down the stairs and, most of all, we enjoyed listening to her stories about her life and the people she once knew. Everyone helped Nanna, except for my father who stayed as far away from his mother in-law as possible, since neither of them got along with one another. When granny, who could speak bluntly and was cantankerous, would see Dad sitting in the living room smoking a cigarette or sipping a drink, she’d go out of her way to loudly say in an accusatory tone, “Who is that man sitting over there on the couch?” She’d then look around, bewilderingly, and wait for somebody…anybody to answer her, glaring at my father all the while. As if he was a stranger who had 76 MARKETPLACEcontracosta.com december 2015 By Woody Carter aimlessly wondered in off the street and sat down, mistakenly thinking that our living room was the local bus stop and he was waiting for the bus. Granny’s question made my father’s blood boil; especially, since he had agreed to my mother’s wishes to let Nanna come and live with them when she could no longer live on her own. About a dozen family members showed up at the restaurant for grandma’s birthday on that day, including my two brothers with their wives and children. We had made a reservation and were immediately seated at a large, round, table with a huge Lazy Susan in the middle. When the waiter was informed that we had come to celebrate granny’s 90th birthday, he was delighted and rushed away only to return with the restaurant’s owner who smiled from ear-to-ear. “Don’t worry about anything,” the owner told us, “we’ll take care of everything. We’ll give you a good


Contra Costa Marketplace - Dec 2015
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