The Potty Mouth Granny

Forty-seven years ago, my mother had just gotten out of the hospital. She had been diagnosed with diabetes, and if my cousin Cleo hadn’t taken her in when she did, she would have slipped into a diabetic coma and died. That’s the part that still makes my chest tighten, even now.

While she was hospitalized, I stayed with my Aunt Maggie and Cleo. I made a quiet vow to myself that I would not cry. And I didn’t. Not even when Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey came on television—the part where his mother dies, sacrificing her warmth to save him in the middle of a brutal snowstorm. I swallowed it all down. Eight years old and already practicing survival.

But the day my mama was supposed to come home, my resolve cracked clean in half. Back in those ancient times before caller ID, every ringing phone felt like a held breath. Each one that wasn’t the call stretched the waiting thinner and thinner. It took too long. My small body couldn’t hold the fear anymore. I collapsed into tears and cried the way only a child can—open, desperate, undone—crying for my mama, because sometimes bravery runs out, and love takes over.