View Your Opposition Through the Grandma Lens
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I decided that my next piece was going to be on my Grandmother, and how I’ve grown further and further from her views as her conviction has grown stronger. This also ties into my struggle, and now peace, with my spirituality. Then, the stories of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery came to light. I needed more time with my story.
What’s happening right now is terrifying but also powerful. The amount of people that have come out in protest really says that they’re angry, and we’re divided as a collective nation. Maybe we’ve never really been that connected. Freedom is the American brand, but there’re a lot of citizens and communities that really aren’t free. Our systems support imprisonment of black and brown people, within their personal space, in our communities… and in our actual prisons!
My story won’t be directly tied to Black Lives Matter. I’m white. I don’t have a personal perspective on what it’s like to be black or brown in America. What I do know is that we as a nation and as a world are so divided right now. More than we’ve ever been. Reflecting on this for a while, Black Lives Matter has caused a lot of evaluation for the type of world we want to live in. What has come out of this rumination for me is that I want to help unite people. This won’t be a #BLM story, but more of a piece on the divisiveness we’re all feeling everywhere, in all communities.
We have so many movements, causes, and tensions rising up and boiling over at the same time. Women’s rights, black and latinx rights, LGBTQ rights, privacy rights, voters rights, the right to personal safety and security. The economy is crashing in ways we’ve never seen before. Covid-19 is causing people to feel unsafe and unemployment is at an all-time high. Unnecessary violence has ensued. People are outraged. It just feels like the world could explode at any moment. Hell, maybe it already is. If I can cause one person to take a step-back to see from another’s perspective, or to at least learn the value of a healthy respectful argument, I’ve completed my mission today. I know that’s hard for some to imagine doing right now.
It’s crazy how things line up sometimes in our lives, or maybe we just notice the right things when we need to see them. I’m currently reading Braving The Wilderness, by Brene Brown, and Chapter four is titled “People are hard to hate close up, move in.” Brene interviews Dr. Michelle Buck who is a clinical professor of leadership at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. In this chapter, my favorite quotes are the following statements from Michelle Buck:
“I believe, and tell my students, one of the most courageous things to say in an uncomfortable conversation is ‘Tell me more.’”
“Help me understand why this is so important to you or help me understand why you don’t agree with this particular idea.”
I’ve heard this technique before of using questions to delve into conflict. This just summarizes that so well in an actionable take-away. If you’re even slightly intrigued by my perspective by the end of this blog/podcast, I encourage you to read Braving the Wilderness, by Brene Brown. She has a much more balanced and articulate approach to the topic of compassion and understanding different perspectives.
Now to the part about my Grandmother, or as she signs all of my cards Gramma. She’s the strongest woman I know. She’s experienced a mixed-bag of childhood traumas and abuse and powered through that only to get a rare leukemia she would battle for 30 years before going into remission. It always surprised me that someone who would get bone marrow removed once a month from their spine would have the strongest back-bone of anyone I’ve ever met. With all the medical fatigue from medications with excruciating side effects, she was a very present mother and grandmother.
During the childhood years that I lived with my Father (I lived with my mother later in my teen years) my Grandma took a very active role in my life. My Dad went to night-school on Tuesdays for a couple years, and my Grandma came over every Tuesday evening to be with me. I didn’t always do all the things that pre-teen or tween girls started to do, and she used those nights to teach me how to shave my legs, and how to use a maxi-pad. Nothing will make you feel more like a freak than the Elementary School nurse tearing open a box of maxi-pads with about one inch of dust on top… Yeah, fifth grade y’all.
One thing you have to know about my Grandma is she’s very budget savvy. She taught me how to save the shaving cream at the top of my leg after each swipe so I could use the cream on the other leg. That’s how budget savvy. I didn’t realize those things weren’t normal until later in life. If you’re running a household for a family of 5 on one person’s earnings, it’s a good way to live. Side note, it’s also very unintentionally environmentally friendly. I can get down with that.
I didn’t have a lot of tween weekends with friends from school or from the neighborhood. My Dad raced cars on Saturday nights, so I stayed with Grandma Diana and Grandpa Pat a lot on the weekends. Friday nights were more desirable than Saturday nights, because Saturday night meant I was there for Sunday morning, and my Grandma is an avid church-goer. As a kid, I was naive to my feelings. Now that I’m older, I understand all of what I felt. I wouldn’t allow myself to admit these feelings for a long time because they came with a huge heaping spoonful of guilt.
I’m just going to say it bluntly, so brace yourselves…. This is very un-American of me…. I never fit in at church. I wish I was the type for that kind of faith, but it’s truly not in me. I’ve tried… really hard. The years of church taught me to pray diligently for the things that felt off in my life. When I stopped feeling like I needed to fit into a specific spiritual mold, I finally had the peace with God I had been seeking all along.
You see, I’m a truth seeker, and I love science. A naive young me used to say things like “if God created everything, then he created science.” Although I still believe that to be true, it’s not something I would ever proclamate again because it feels empty and void and it doesn’t fully encapsulate the necessity I have to explore truth, while still feeling divinity of some-kind. The world and the Universe (or even the Multiverse for you nerds out there) well, it’s beautiful beyond words. That said, I watch every science and history documentary on Netflix and streaming-services, so I’m kinda a scientist...haha… I’ve learned a lot about the corruption of religion throughout history. I’ve also traveled to over 50 countries and I’ve seen people that believe all kinds of things. It’s just hard to subscribe to one specific belief system when you know so much, and when you challenge yourself to know more. When I told my Grandma that I was taking a World Religions course in college, she said “that’ll just confuse you and cloud your beliefs.” She was right. I don’t agree or support that way of thinking, and that’s where I think she was wrong.
For those that fit well into a religious community, here’s some perspective for those that don’t and how that happens. My memories of church were of being reprimanded in Sunday School for writing God on the white-board with a lower-case “g” in a very embarrassing manner. I already felt like I didn’t fit in because I attended church 1-2 weeks a month during the Summer and less during the Winter. I also wasn’t aware of the politics involved with creationists. I was just a kid who was confused as to why my public school teacher was telling me dinosaurs existed well before humans and my Sunday school teacher scolding me for questioning her. Children have innocent perspectives, and adults often project way too much onto them for not understanding social awareness or political correctness. In my grown-up opinion, there isn’t anything correct with creationism. I’m a science-gal. I want to unite people, and I hope my honesty doesn’t scare you. Heck, let’s have a healthy debate.
My Grandparent’s church is pentecostal, which is a denomination that believes in speaking-in-tongues. Think, the Preacher in There Will Be Blood. If you’ve ever seen anything where folks are in church praying and speaking a language that doesn’t exist in groups with their hands on someone’s head or shoulders, that’s speaking-in-tongues. I’m not here to mock at all, but when I removed myself in my older years to extract what I actually felt, it all didn’t feel right to me. This is also backed up by watching my Grandmother’s community shun her when some skeletons from her closet came out from her youth. They were family matters and from before she was a Christian. The community that was supposed to forgive and not judge ran the full gamut of judge, jury and executioner. I was confused at how this could happen. As a kid, I knew better.
I attended Church Camp a couple Summers in Oregon when I was a pre-teen. This was driven by my Grandmother. She really wanted me to go. It was only for a week each time and camp was on a very regimented schedule. Church in the morning, activities and meals throughout the day, and church again in the evening, then bed-time. All like clockwork. I remember one sermon where the Pastor asked “does anyone here feel special and a unique calling to God?” I raised my hand and responded that I did. I think I was around 10 years old, and I had no idea what I was actually answering. I thought “yeah, I’m special” and “yeah, I have callings to do things and those must be because of God.”
One of the women there pulled me aside to emphasize how special that was and how I should be so proud of that calling. When I was at my Grandma’s house next, she sat me down and told me she heard of my calling. I was so confused why this was a big deal and why every kid didn’t raise their hands… We were all special and I’m sure God had a calling for us all.
Of course, I now recognize that meant that they thought I was supposed to be a pastor, preacher, missionary, or some religious leader. That was a loaded question to pose to a 10 year-old, especially so vaguely. I think I embarrassed my Grandma by not living up to that calling. That was the last year I went to Church Summer Camp.
Grandma also didn’t believe in Halloween or any of the Tim Burton movies like The Nightmare Before Christmas. Oh, and let’s not even get started on Harry Potter. One Halloween, I was with my Grandma, and that involved going to the church where they gave us all a bag of candy in lieu of going door-to-door or dressing up. There were like five kids there. Probably not the best sales pitch the church could’ve done for those kids.
Here’s the best story that paints the picture of my experience with my Grandmother. She had a computer smack-dab in the middle of her living-room… You know… The kind with dial-up and an AOL disk in the drive. This was the Summer between eighth and ninth grade, so 1999. There was a website called gurl.com, with a “U” instead of an “I”. It was kinda a teen-type online magazine… Think Teen Beat, Sassy, Bop, but online. Seventeen magazine ended up buying the website later if that helps your imagination.
So, I‘m in the middle of my Grandparent’s living room while they’re on the couch watching probably Fox News or the O’Riley Factor and I accidentally typed “I” instead of “U”.
G….I….R….L...dot...com.
True to late 90’s style, about 28 pop-ups came up, all of the porn nature... and I started clicking them away like I was in a trigger happy spaghetti western. Luckily, I managed to avoid an awkward moment. No one saw or noticed. Well, not so easy there Kristen.
The next time I visited Grandma, she said she needed to talk to me. By this time, I honestly forgot the prior incident. She sits next to me and says “You know, if you’re curious about anything with sex, you can ask me.”
I was a little perplexed as to why she was bringing this up, but I said “thanks, but I’m ok.” She didn’t seem content with that response and told me she saw what I was looking up on the computer in the history. It all came rushing back to my brain, and I explained to her that I meant to type girl with a “U'' instead of an “I” and I forgot and typed it the way it’s normally spelled. I even told her to go try it and she would see.
I could tell by her response to my explanation, she had decided not to believe me. Grandma came convinced and equipped before I even opened my mouth. Nothing I said was going to sway her opinion. Now I just think that story paints a perfect image of the type of caring, yet very unwavering strong woman she is.
My Grandma is very staunch in her beliefs and she’s one of those women that has a masterful way of swaying conversations in a direction to get other information out. Her disapproval is made clear, even when she doesn’t say it directly. So much so that she even has a nervous mumble where she says “mmm...but” followed by nothing else but dead silence. It’s her subtle way of speaking up without actually doing it. Everyone who knows my Grandmother well knows to watch out for the powerful and quiet aftermath of the “mmm….but.”
Another example of that strong belief would be how my family were all so nervous to tell my Grandparents about a family member that’s gay. My Grandmother was the last to be officially told because of her beliefs on the topic. To be honest, I’m not sure my Grandfather knows yet. We left that news with my Grandmother to tell him.
My Grandfather has been known to hold grudges and not speak to family members for years for opposing political, religious, or social beliefs. Luckily, my Grandmother asked me what a podcast was a couple weeks ago, so hopefully I’m in the clear with my storytelling. Frankly, I was just glad when the news broke so another family member could take some of the heat off me. I was the granddaughter “living-in-sin” for years. I was also so exhausted with her trying to ask me indirectly through insinuations, and it wasn’t my place to take someone out of the closet. She’s a smart lady, and nothing gets past her. Really, nothing.
My Grandfather is a very old-school man. He was a logger for almost his whole life, with a youthful stint as a rancher and cattle herder in Arizona. He’s the kind of man to take baths… No, not the bubble kind. The cowboy kind. I’ll never forget what he said to me when I told him I got a job as a server in a restaurant when I was about 19/20 years old. Keep in mind, he genuinely meant this with good intentions and he wasn’t trying to be unkind or to belittle me. He said “that’ll be good practice for when you’re married someday.” Yup! When these moments arise with my Grandfather, I usually don’t say anything. With my Grandmother, I will. She and I are capable of having a healthy chat about why we have different perspectives.
Somehow things in my life make their way to my Grandmother’s orbit, especially when you least expect it. My Dad remarried when I was 14 to my step-mother. When I was around 17, I went to my step-mom’s family reunion and her Grandmother was there. She traveled around 300 miles to the reunion. There was no reason to believe that my Grandmother had ever met my Stepmother’s Grandmother who barely ever visited this area of Oregon. Yet, when I met her, she said “oh, you’re the girl I hear so much about in the prayer chain.”
For those of you that don’t know what a prayer chain is, it’s a list or a pyramid of prayers. Someone in need calls someone to activate the prayer chain. Then, that person calls a few more people and they call a few more. Typical chain or pyramid style. These calls often happen in the middle of the night from my experience seeing my Grandmother take them.
So, this woman who was pretty well removed from my community, except through a couple people I was related to (that I knew did-not participate in the prayer-chain)… well that made this some six prayer degrees to Kevin Bacon’s grandma shit.
Nothing slides past her either. My Dad is a conservative but loathes Trump. His stance is that conservative supporters of Trump are mostly “party over country.” My Grandparents are very conservative and they will always vote with whomever is the elected republican nominee. I think they assumed my Dad was a Trump supporter because my Dad has avoided politics with them, knowing it wouldn't go over well.
Last time I visited Oregon, my family was sitting at the table eating lunch with my Grandparents and my Grandfather turned to my Dad and said, “Trump is really turning this country around, isn’t he?” I immediately thought “oh, no… this is not going to go over well.” There was a lot of cross-chatter, so my Dad gracefully tried to pretend he didn’t hear him. My Grandfather wasn’t letting up and he waited for silence, and repeated himself. My Grandmother was around the corner in the next room grabbing something, so I shot my step-mother the big-eyes of fear. My Dad handled that really well, counter-arguing without conflict and I was so proud of him. My Grandmother, around the bend, of course caught my fearful eye-shot. As I’ve said before, nothing slides past her.
I’ve spent so much time telling you how powerful my Grandma’s faith and disposition is. I really want to focus back on what makes our connection so special. She loves her family above all. If there’s any malleability in her beliefs, it’ll be for her family members. She still hasn’t budged on her beliefs in gay-rights, but she loves her whole family and would never sacrifice having a relationship with anyone for her beliefs. I think she thinks it’s God, Family, everything else… From my viewpoint, she has it lined up as Family, God, everything else.
Every time I visit Oregon, she offers to pick me up from the airport. Most of the time now, it’s Eugene which is an hour each way. Before Eugene became more of a hub, I always flew into Portland. That’s around 2.5 hours each way.
She’s the planner of the household financials, trips, etc. My Grandparents have never taken a vacation in their life that didn’t involve family. Not even for their 50th anniversary. They rented a beautiful home and invited all their children and grandchildren.
We would always bake together, go to the Oregon Coast for the day, and she would always take me shopping for a couple new outfits before school started every year.
When I was in my early twenties, I backpacked Europe by myself a couple times. After my first trip, my Grandmother asked me how much credit card debt I accumulated. I told her $1,500. A week later, I received a card and a check in the mail for $750, to cover half the debt from my travels. That was a gesture that’s beyond generous. My Grandmother was a homemaker, and my Grandfather was a logger.
Whenever I see her, she gives me the warmest and fullest hugs. She always says “big hug” and squeezes tight and rocks back and forth. It’s a solid five seconds or more. When we part and I’m leaving Oregon, there’s no stopping tears from billowing up in her eyes… every time. It breaks my heart.
I think she does sometimes forget that I’m her Granddaughter and not her daughter. That’s how strong our bond is.
I’ve put a lot of thought into if I should even put this (and a lot of other) stories of mine out there. It’s never my intention to hurt anyone, and my Grandmother knowing my true stance on my perspectives here could upset her. I’ve truly made a lot of decisions in my life based on my Grandma’s approval and disapproval. I think by 35, I just know who I am now and I feel my mission is to bring people together. I’ve stopped living my life for others at this stage as well.
The nuanced details of stories are what help humanize people, and I truly want to paint a picture of how I can be so close to someone, yet believe completely different things and still respect everything about that person. One of the people I’m closest to in the world happens to have completely opposite beliefs.
I didn’t want to do this type of storytelling unless I could be raw, open, honest, and vulnerable. These are the types of characteristics that strong women in my life like my Mother and Grandmother have instilled in me. A lot of us have those people that we make exceptions for. The people we know truly are good people with good intentions, even if they’re not quite progressive and even if they don’t believe what we believe to be right. That person for me is my Grandmother.
I want to be clear that I don’t excuse bad behavior. I just believe that a lot of us have someone out there that’s the exception to the rule. If we can try for a moment to view others through the lens we see that person through, maybe some compassion and empathy could follow.
“Are their beliefs rooted in self-reflection with an intention of betterment?”
As cliche as it may come off, my favorite quote ever is by Socrates and states that “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I have a principal I follow. I came up with this about five years ago, and it’s an extension from my evaluation of this quote. I use this method when I know enough about someone to gauge their basic level of values, beliefs and principals, but we disagree or we’re misaligned… When I hear that voice inside wanting me to wedge separation between how I feel about them. I ask myself “Are their beliefs rooted in self-reflection with an intention of betterment?” If my answer is yes to that question, I cut them some slack. If it’s no, then I don’t.
Sometimes even in reflection of values, people will impose their beliefs on others and try to change laws or systems to take rights away from others that believe differently than them. I’ll step up to defend the rights of people to live their lives in the pursuit of happiness however they feel that is. I still try to remain open to understanding that the opposition often-times feels a struggle with their own internal reflection on values and beliefs that they really believe to be right.
While we polarize and plant stakes in the sand on opposite sides of the sea, someone needs to swim to the island every once in a while to move things forward. It’s exhausting making that trek. We’re not going to start the process of healing as a nation and as a world until we’re open to listening to others and open to having healthy discussions.
My Gramma doesn’t have the same belief system I do. Her and I don’t believe in much of anything that aligns. I know she has the biggest heart, and it’s full of love and compassion. She’s a self-reflector and she tries to be a better person every day. I encourage you to find your Gramma, whomever that is, and try to take a step back to view others through the Grandma Lens. If you can look at others through that lens and you see that they’re well-intentioned through their flaws, cut them some slack. Give it a try. If you look through the Grandma Lens and see tiki-torch carrying Nazis... well, screw those guys. Nobody needs that shit.
