To Garner Wisdom

One of my daddy's things to say was if you asked him as question, he would ask if you were writting a book? My answer finally became, yes. His response to this was well, leave that page out. He probably never read the first book. He had all of a ninth grade education. The whole family seemed to have went to the nineth grade. Sixteen must have been the age quitting was accepted. My grandmother did not go that far, but she had a GED. She had even tried to go on and become a school teacher. I am sure she would have been the best teacher ever. I know this from all she taught me. She wasn't Garner, but sure did adapt well to the Garner way of life. The one person she admired most was her mother-in-law. She was a Barnett before marrying Mayorn Garner. Then again the hard working good women were not Garner's after all; they just became what the not so hardworking Garner men expected to become. Keeping on keeping on was normal. Men died, we had funerals and then it was the day after when we all went back to working on the job that had to be done. My grandmother got up the morning after we buried someone and told us, "get up kids we've got to go on."
It can honestly be said that there were never, and will never be men that defined drunk in a manner of these men. There was always an occasion for them to drink. Funerals were no exception.
The statement I have heard and repeated many times; the perfect crime can be committed if you do not tell a soul. Affairs can be gotten away with only if neither involved tell no one. All that went on in my home was one of those situations. As long as the outside world did not know of the meaness there, it was ok. The men were expected to have affairs. That is basically impossible for women, they have to tell at least one friend that they want to impress. Most of the time again back to my experience with people everyone has a disloyal bone in their body and will tell someone else. I do have secrets of my dear friends that I would never tell anyone. I would not tell mainly for fear of hurting someone I loved. I would also not tell fearing they would turn on me one day.
I did when my grandmother was older try to tell her. I wanted to hurt her. She had made this big deal out of six dollars in change. I had gone to the grocery store for her and did not give her change back. I got back to my house and my brother called. Grandmother had called him to tell him I had kept her money. I still want to cry when I think of him scolding me for taking her money. He was always a big defender of hers. She had petted him from the very beginning. She had a thing that men were to be waited on. His love for her still is deep, so deep that he never did see her faults. The grandchildren that have not given in to drug dependency or alcoholism still sing the praises of all she did for us. She made us what we are today. Whatever part of her that is in our genes can be that we watched the good; I am probably the only one with her blood that acknowledges she was not perfect. I am ashamed that when she was old I wanted to hurt her. A regret that bothers me often. She did do more for me than any of the others.
Her will to survive was enough to justify many of her beliefs. "You do what you got to do." was something she said often. It also a phrase that I have used many times. I have totally figured out what being abused makes you become. You become a person that no matter what you accomplish, happiness is something that is very hard for you to feel. I am blessed with a perfect job, wonderful children, many friends, and a realationship that works well. With all that is good in my life, there is still that nagging in my soul; A sadness that no matter how hard I try creeps up way too often. The stories I tell of the people that molded me are not all to blame, because I hand picked the one's that gave me the best advice.