it's a long story.

I started "cleaning" our computer-slash-music-slash-drawing- room the other day. It wasn't particularly messy. Slightly cluttered, perhaps (it's only 11 x 12), but fairly clean. It is, however, a treasure trove for the past--for both me and mine. 

I didn't know when I started that I would be traveling through time.  What I found was a decade's worth of stuff, then two, which became three and so forth until I arrived at (or descended to) 1857. The family history on my mom's side, courtesy of my Uncle Allen begins:

"1. Benjamin Smith was born in Vermont. He married Elizabeth (Eliza)." It continues, "Notes for Benjamin Smith: Benjamin Smith's occupation listed as Chair Maker."

Benjamin's first born son, Lorin, arrived on January 15, 1857.

Grampa, sometime in the 80s, weaving seats for our chairs

And so begins one half of my documented family history. That isn't to say we were a close family.  I barely knew my great grandmother, who had long been living in Florida. For years I was afraid of my Grampa. He worked a lot, was grumpy when he came home, and only had patience with us for the few hours we could sit quietly with him in his den watching television. This changed as we got older, particularly when I had reached my 20s, even more so after he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. We built a coffee table together, stained it, it's been in my living room since.

When I was about six or seven, my grandmother had a benign tumor removed from her head, which caused some nerve damage and other complications. In the end, the somewhat botched surgery left her with only half of her hearing and an eye that would never open on its own again, but worse, it destroyed her zest for life. From that moment and for years afterward, she would sit on the couch and cry at the sight of me. All I could do is sit down by her and say, "Don't cry, Grammy." I wasn't old enough or wise enough to offer any other words. I did know that she was incredibly sad, because her life was upside down, and because it would never again be entirely right-side-up. I know now that she was also extraordinarily vain--I think maybe the change in her face and the closed eye really bothered her. She also developed a deepening sense of hatred. Especially for my mother--although this disdain had hatched long before the surgery--after she had a still-born birth. The distance between them only grew wider after my mother and father divorced. This hate she was growing inside her extended also to my grandfather, who took care of her and deflected her abuse for the rest of his life. Even during my grandfather's last days, my grandmother took special care to criticize my mother. After he died she took my mother out of the will my grandfather had drawn, save $1,000, and moved to New York state with my uncle. I never heard from her again. And no one knows exactly how they used the nearly $1 million he had saved for their retirement. She never went into a nursing home, and died three and a half years after my grandfather in a small bedroom he had sectioned off in his house. Curious.

Possibly taken at South Street, Fitchburg

My grandfather on the other hand, favored my mom. He was strict, and pretty stern with both of his kids. I'm pretty sure my mom lived with some fear, but he did love her. Unconditionally, and as well as he could. He worked hard, built the house they lived in, and tried to teach her everything he knew. My uncle never would accept any of it from him, but that's another story, and another family as far as I'm concerned anymore. He liked ham radio and computers. He was technologically savvy, and when he would finish with his computers he would give them to us. I've been using a computer since he gave us his Commodore 64 in the 80s. In the mid-90s he bought me my own computer with a modem, and so began my internet adventures. Thanks, Grampa!

Charles C. Smith

After my parents divorced, we moved back to Massachusetts with my father. My mother stayed in Louisiana with her boyfriend, and soon after that my father's girlfriend moved here from Louisiana to be with us. Both couples married a year later. We kept in touch with my maternal grandparents, but my sister and I had little contact with our mother until we grew old enough to keep in contact with her for ourselves. Sometimes I missed her, and other times I'm not sure what I felt for her. I didn't understand why she was gone, and I never liked the tension between my father and her when there was opportunity to talk to her or visit. My father hated her. He hates her less now. Sometimes I can't imagine being in her shoes; being so hated by the people who should hate you least, if not love you unconditionally. I'm a firm believer in loving the person who gave you your children, come hell or high water. I think I'm just a firm believer that love has a place in every interaction and relationship regardless of circumstances. Everyone has a dark side, and everyone carries a little torch of something wonderful inside of them. I always look for the latter. 

My mother, high school

I'm not that much like my mother, although my father would disagree. Like her, I can cook, as could my grandmother. My grandmother was a baker in the Townsend school system for 20 years, and retired in 1980. Back when they baked things for school lunches from scratch. Her baking was known all over town. I'd venture to say she was the best around. This talent passed on to my mother, and nowadays I find that I enjoy cooking more than I enjoy writing. I don't understand how something like cooking can be weaved into one's DNA, but it would seem that way with us. My step-mother can't cook, my father did because he had to (which means it tasted exactly like he was doing it because he had to), and I scarcely saw my mother until I was in my 20s. My mother is also creative, although more crafty than artsy. She has a very deep singing voice that carries. That's really where it ends. And in the end, I suppose that's a lot of what really counts. 

My mom, on the right. No, not the collie.