A Lumpy Rug

by Destiny Harris

I live with my grandparents, in a house on the other side of the tracks where most of our neighbors are a lot lighter than us, and our names are not known to most, but on the other side, almost everywhere our family goes, my grandfather is stopped by someone he knows and someone is surprised about how big my siblings and I have gotten. On this side our family is not just the family that lives at the end of the street but the family who owns a business that has stood through many trials and has birthed many other businesses, and the grandfather who is an activist that will stop at nothing to address problems to save the community , who never backs down from a fight. Due to this reputation, he must be perfect, including his family. He was known for addressing community problems, but he was also great at sweeping family problems under the rug.

Every Tuesday there is a town meeting lead by my grandfather in an old, beaten gym that used to be the place he would go to after school when he was my age. Only a few attended these meetings, but more people came when they heard that there was going to be food provided at the start of every meeting, which was my idea. Before this meeting, my grandfather had just learned that there was a huge increase of foster care children, many businesses that were facing foreclosure, so these were the kind of issues my grandfather liked to talk about during these meetings.

Dramatic was how everyone described me, and they were right, but to a certain point. Staying up late nights crying, my grandfather and I have had many disagreements, he was always frustrated with me being happy one minute and furious the next, never being satisfied with who I was, and constantly having the feeling that I was pushed down a never-ending hole, led me to always answering “I’m fine,” because I never had an answer for it. It took me years to finally admit to myself that there was something wrong, mentally wrong. The nights my grandfather would yell at me for not coming downstairs to eat the dinner he had prepared, was always hard for me, but I knew that one day I would find the courage to tell him, it was not him but it was me, I think.

On one occasion, my “attitude” was disrespectful as my grandfather described it and told me to pull myself together, and of course this agitated me because my emotions were out of my control. I knew something was wrong, but I did not have concrete answers.

My grandfather yelled “I took you in, after the passing of your parents and I gave you everything, a roof over your head, a bed to sleep in, and every night I have to deal with your nasty attitude and every time I ask you what’s wrong you say nothing, YOU ARE SO UNGRATEFUL!”

I cried, “I am not mad at you, I am just as confused as you are, and I actually don’t know why my mood switches every other second… I think I am bi-polar or something.”

Those town meetings usually start out with my father saying a prayer and his secretary stating their previous accomplishments and news for the week. Then they open the floor for people to state their concerns about the community, and one concern was of course about the increase in foster kids, and another about streets not being finished quicker. There were many concerns stated at this meeting, and one person who was a teacher in the public-school system talked about behavioral problems of children and how we as a community need to help. The teacher went on to say that many students are not punished properly because they have been diagnosed with mental illnesses. This caused a long discussion. Many people stood up, giving their opinions, many in favor of schools that still need to punish the children.

Then my grandfather stood up and said, “Children need to be punished and they need to stop using “mental illness” as a reason for their behavior; they need to be disciplined… the old-fashioned way.” The crowd applauds, then he goes on saying “Back in my day there was no such thing as using depression and anxiety to get out of punishment, in fact I had someone who is very dear to me say that they may be bi-polar, but they really just need that rod of correction,” and the crowd laughs and claps in favor of what he was saying.

Although my family lived in a two-story house, where everyone had their own room, and could cool off in our own swimming pool, all expectations were not met. What my grandfather said at that meeting made me feel shame and hurt. To this day I have never talked to my grandfather about it, because why should I? To think that those mornings I debated jumping out my window, the afternoons planned to run into the street and let a car hit me and the nights I thought of going into the kitchen to use a knife to slit my wrist was all due to lack of punishment, according to my grandfather, was a huge slap to my face, and because of that I chose to face the fact that I can do just like my grandfather and make another lump under the rug.