The following is written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
The night had just the right amount of chill in it. The stars were twinkling in the sky. The chiminea crackled with a beautiful fire.
The fire and the copious amounts of wine kept us warm. Glowing. Happy. Grandma Rose, foregoing the wine, asked for a blanket. She wrapped herself in it and humored us quietly as we grew funnier, more charming as the night wore on.
It was a perfect night. Some of my very favorite women in the world sat on my deck, the light of the fire highlighted their smiles and the clear Carolina air carried their laughter.
And, then we broke out a Key Lime pie. You may not know this, but Key Lime pie is mean. It made us cry.
Ok, so it wasn’t actually the pie that made us cry. It was my husband’s aunt, Jo E.
So, it wasn’t exactly the pie, and it wasn’t really Jo E., but around the time the pie was broken out the conversation turned to me not wanting children. I was 28 and adamant that I did not want any kids. I reiterated my tried and true slogan of: I’ve been a mom most of my life. I am tired of taking care of people.
Jo E. wasn’t hearing it. She had been slyly whittling a sturdy soapbox throughout the night and with the grace of a cheetah and the dogged determination of a politician she climbed atop. And, she took her fork, remnants of her pie still clinging to it, with her.
She gestured with her fork, flinging pie crust on us, she announced without an ounce of hesitation that I was wrong. Dead wrong. I did want to have children. I was just scared.
My floodgates, pushed to their limits by the wine, cracked and then opened – wide. I admitted that I was scared, I lived in daily fear that my mom was going to die. I was afraid that I would become my mom. I was afraid that my child would get the gene of addiction that I had somehow missed.
Not a dry eye in the house.
My mother-in-law tried to change the subject. Jo E. persisted.
Then Grandma, whom had sat quietly in the corner wrapped in her blanket, ended her daughter’s assault and changed my life. Grandma whom had lost two sons, one to a brain tumor when he was seven and one in a car wreck when he was 15, quietly said, Sosha, I’ve lived through the worst thing that a mother can live through – twice. However, I would do it all over again.
The next day we went to see David Sedaris. I was sitting beside Grandma. Sedaris opened with a joke about equine felatio. It was hilarious, but I was sitting beside my husband’s beloved grandmother, the matriarch, and I had taken her to a show where oral beastiality was a topic of conversation. I prayed for the seat to eat me alive. She patted me on the knee and said, “He is a funny young man.”
Once again she saved the night.
Grandma was ahead of her time.
We talk about the night Key Lime pie got me pregnant. It makes us all laugh and get a little misty-eyed – missing Grandma. I tell Conley that she has pie and her great-aunt Jo E. for her being here.
We all know it was Grandma.
Soshally Awkward
Sosha Lewis is a writer whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, Huffington Post, MUTHA Magazine and The Charlotte Observer. She writes about her sometimes wild, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking past filled with free-lunches, a grimy sports bar, a six foot tall Albino woman who tried to save her teenage soul, felonious, drug addicted parents, an imaginary friend named Blueberry and growing up nestled in the coal-dusted mountains of West Virginia.
