Mount Carmel, after the fire: Part 6, Grandma

When I left Mount Carmel, it was for five days of frivolity. My grandmother is what they used to call “a notable clubwoman”. Every year she and her friends used to have a holiday season. I would attend luncheons in nice homes, club meetings, dine in state, and, near the end of the visit, dance with grandfathers in tuxes at their Christmas Ball. In the meantime, my husband amused himself by bringing in a paycheck and cooking things I don’t like to smell, such as liver and onions.

So, I would let her choose my dress and jewelry, and out we’d go. None of these Texas ladies I met would have shirked her duty at the mission walls, although, like all Dallas ladies of that generation, they would have been well-groomed for the event. I didn’t get any whiff of Alamo Syndrome.

One night we were taking a break from big doings and the food that makes elderly ladies celebratory but faintly nauseous afterward. I told my grandmother that I’d spent an afternoon at the site of David Koresh’s conflagration. That I’d learned that the news would rather tell a story than the truth. That people worry about their faith.

“Well, my gosh, honey,” she disapproved. “I wouldn’t think you’d need to go there to know that.”
“Well, I did have to go.” I told her about it. She shook her head, slowly.

“The world is so full of evil, I don’t know how you young people are going to manage.”

“Well, Grandma, you lived through the Depression,” I reminded her. “You lived through World War II. Your sister died of tuberculosis, and you and Grandpa nearly died in a ship fire. I don’t see that the challenges we have are any worse than that.”

“Well, that’s true,” she said, brightening up. I finished parboiling chicken breasts and added the broccoli. A couple more minutes, and her digestion would be in a better place.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I was almost taken by a masher in front of a speakeasy?”

“No, really?” She told me stuff I never got to learn as a kid. She was almost kidnapped into what was called white slavery. Now it’s called human trafficking or forced prostitution. Mostly I think she was afraid, running around Chicago after dark, alone, to meet some guy in a bar. But you never know: grandmothers do crazy things when they're young. Sometimes longer.

The chicken was a definite hit. We were eating it while we were watching Jeopardy!

“You know, Grandma, I don’t think the end times are near, either.”
“I don’t think about the end times,” she said. “I just pray for all of you every night.”