Room 5011

Hope > Tragedy

2011-11-09T19:54:00.000-08:00

Prior to July of this year, I don't think that I had ever heard the term "chemical pregnancy" before. I would have assumed it was some process through which you try and get pregnant through the use of chemicals, probably. But, as I learned, that was not the case.

After [I quit counting to help my attitude] months of trying to conceive, I finally tested positive on a pregnancy test in July. I already thought that I was pregnant due to some symptoms I was having, so the positive test result hit me as more of a "I thought so. Yes!" than a "I can't believe it! Finally!" Mark and I were still pretty ecstatic and we immediately started talking to Anna about becoming a big sister. I had only been pregnant once before, and that pregnancy was perfect up until her due date. I had no reason to think that we weren't on the same path.

Unfortunately, we were granted just three short days of knowing we were expecting baby #2. He/she didn't show up on a blood test on Monday, and they broke the news to me while I was at work over the phone. I have always (in a sick sense) pictured receiving terrible news at work since I'm there so often, but experiencing it was quite another thing. I first tried to have her tell me that it was some sort of mistake - that I was really pregnant and maybe there was something wrong with the test. I then wept, and then tried to get myself together and sneak out of the office unseen. I escaped without having to talk to anyone and made it to my car, not sure of what was next.

I cried for 2 days. I literally could not stop crying. Anna would say, "Mommy, you cryin?" And I would reply, "Yes, baby, but it's not your fault. I'm sad right now but I'll get better. I'll try and stop crying real soon." And then a tear would fall down my face, and she laughed because I couldn't make them stop. And, strangely, this made me laugh too. Anna soon forgot about being a big sister, and life just kind of moved on the way it tends to do.

There have been moments when this has been surprisingly difficult, but then I look back and I'm amazed at how relatively easy it was to move on. I scratched my head trying to see if I could figure out why it happened, how it happened, or if I would ever get pregnant again. But then I took a step back and thought about all of the people out there who are trying to have their first baby, and the fact that they don't have any toddlers around to laugh away their tears.

I have convinced myself yet again that I can and will get pregnant with what will be baby #3 for me. I am a believer, and I just know in my gut that this will happen. These things are kind of like spouses - you can't really choose when it will happen. It just does. Or, it doesn't. And like the most intricate and important aspects of life, there is very little rhyme or reason to the happening. For now, though, I enjoy my quiet confidence and will continue to nurture my hope that I will bring Anna a little brother or sister who will pester her for years to come.

My name is Jaime, and I shall believe.

Describing the Indescribable

2011-05-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

The term "indescribable" seems so trite. It's the word that pops out of every mouth to every individual who has witnessed the wreckage left by the Big Monster which trekked from Tuscaloosa to Pleasant Grove and on to Fultondale on April 27, 2011. And I'm not talking about those who have gasped at paper images or pdfs on their computer screen. Those individuals who have family and friends, those who grew up in neighborhoods which no longer exist: they call it indescribable.

There's something haunting about barren tree trunks. They are the only "trees" still standing in the damaged parts of Pleasant Grove - they're snapped in half and bark is missing and the tops are nowhere to be seen. Bare trunks shoot straight into the sky with jagged edges, looking empty and raped.

The town had the same feel. In order to drive to my Aunt's house, we had to drive through an area which suffered a direct hit from the path of the storm. What was once rows of small brick houses with large trees spread throughout was now barren earth with sticks of wood and housewares scattered like litter. My Aunt started naming all of the people she knew on the streets we passed, and then began saying of each one, "What happened to them? I haven't heard anything. What happened?" How could you survive when there's nothing left of your home but steps and a concrete slab? We had no answers, and the weight of the week's emotional toll fell on her as she crumbled into tears.

As we drove down the rode to my Aunt's house - the home where we used to gather for Christmas and Mother's Day when my grandmother was alive - I didn't know where we were. The houses were deformed with trees sticking through, and towards my Aunt's house several were reduced to one or two rooms. No one died on her street to our knowledge, so there was comfort and wonder as we came upon her neighbor's house which now consisted of a concrete slab, one bath and 3 walls of a bedroom. The hand towels were still neatly hung on the towel rack and the bathroom mirror was untouched. If he had chosen any other room, he may not have been so lucky.

My Aunt's house looked remarkably normal, as did most on her side of the street. Six shutters were missing from the front windows and a giant tree was laying down in the front yard; the front and back of her mailbox was missing. My Aunt's hand shook as she tried to put the key in the door, still overwhelmed by the drive. We entered to find a 12-foot branch standing straight in her living room; the wind had shot it like a missile through her roof and it stood slanted on her floor.

She showed us the closet in which she hid during the storm - the same one my grandmother had stuffed me and my brother into under the threat of severe weather. I still remember her packing pillows on top of our heads and telling us that she'd open the door and let us out once it was safe. I never thought then what she was planning to do if a tornado came through. It never mattered; we always got out within fifteen minutes or so after the storm passed.

My Aunt wasn't as lucky. After hearing the roar of the tornado make its way past her house, she tried to open up the door to get out. The storm shifted the house and she was stuck, unable to make her exit. After an hour she heard voices and screamed for help and her neighbors were able to break her free. She then called her son to let him know that she was alive.

We gathered photographs and family Bibles, clothes and treasured books. We gathered all that she could think of to save, just in case moisture was able to make its way into the house and ruin her belongings. Once we were finished cleaning out the refrigerator and sweeping away all of the broken glass from the back windows, we headed outside to help the men take branches and sawed tree trunks to the street. We then moved on to her neighbor's house, and her neighbor's neighbor, and our volunteers tarped the roofs and sealed the windows and cut up the trees that had fallen on their houses. I picked up trunks and branches and I took it to a pile over and over and over again, and I could have done it all day because I knew that at some point it needed to be done, and at this point I needed to do something. Towards two p.m., there were stacks of branches and tree trunks and twisted metal and trash sitting at the street waiting for pickup. The piles may sit there for months, but we all had faith that at some point someone would come and take it away. At least, that's what we hoped.

I guess it's not indescribable. It's a tragedy. It's a nightmare. It's a setback. It's a storm. It's so many things to so many people, but it has changed the lives of thousands in one swoop over just a few hours.

My name is Jaime, and I will never forget.

Wheezy

2011-04-12T18:49:00.000-07:00

When one is trying to conceive (that's the lingo folks, blogs everywhere use "ttc" for short - I know, it's kind of icky for some reason to phrase it that way, but I digress), one often consults a fertility doctor (we are using the same one who helped us along with Anna, Dr. Steinkampf). So, all of the fertility issues and/or questions I have (yes, there are questions) I kind of slot for Dr. Steinkampf.

So lately, my life goes as follows:

Breast cancer? Let's go see the OB and a surgeon and follow up in a few months to check it out...again.

Asthma? Let's go see the pulminologist.

Negative pregnancy test? Let's finish up the rounds of Clomid and then go see Dr. Steinkampf for another consult.

What I did NOT know, is that the call to the pulmonologist could actually mess up the fertility thingy. So, when I took NyQuil this weekend without thinking because I just wanted to breathe and sleep, this was a bad call. Fortunately, it was not within the so-called "magic window" that requires all engines a-go, shall we say. So, we'll call it a foul. However, a call to the fertility doc confirmed that those who are both allergy sufferers and fertility challenged are screwed. No NyQuil. No Tylenol Sinus. No decongestants. Take some Benadryl if you must, but that's pretty much it except for Sudafed.

So, if you want to sleep while reading and writing briefs all day, then you can do so without a runny nose. If you actually want to work, well, grab a tissue.

And so goes my vent for the evening. I have asthma, and I have no babies-on-the-way, and treating the symptoms of one could continue the pattern with the other. Part of me wants to say "pass" for this month, but wouldn't a January baby be fun? My name is Jaime, and I will remain a sneezy wheezy.

So, I don't have cancer.

2011-03-05T20:23:00.001-08:00

Written before I received the biopsy results:

"I'm only 34," I keep telling myself. "I cannot have cancer. The odds are in my favor."

Two of these statements are fact, and one is a hope. Regardless, I am currently awaiting the results of a biopsy; a biopsy in which they are only checking for one thing: cancer. The odds are, I will receive a call next week with good news. Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that the odds are in my favor.

One morning I woke up and it was there. As I rose from the bed to go take a shower on your typical work-day morning, I scratched an itch or just happened to place my hand in the right spot and BAM. What is that? I watched it for a month, hoping that it would change with the tide that is the hormonal cycle of every woman, which can and does affect bumps and nodules in the breast. It remained the same through one month, and so I made an appointment.

"I'm sure it's nothing," my OB said. "I wouldn't have even noticed it." However, because I had, and because she could, off I went to ultrasound to make sure. I might get a mammogram, but maybe not if they can confirm that it's nothing.

And so I entered the ultrasound, hoping that they would call me silly and tell me not to worry with such things. After consulting with the radiologist, the tech returned to tell me that I was, in fact, receiving my first mammogram that day. "Just to be sure."

The tests ended up showing nothing. Absolutely nothing. I received a letter in the mail stating that I did not have cancer, but that I should follow up with my OB. "Mammograms are only 90% accurate." I just thought they were including CYA language for their own benefit. I'm a lawyer, and I know that no one wants to guarantee that you have nothing. You're just opening the door, asking for a lawsuit if you do. So, back to the OB for a consult.

Again, certain it was nothing, she ordered me off to a surgeon to confirm her thoughts. "It's just that it's different, and you noticed it, so I'd feel better having it checked out." I agreed. Who wants to mess around with cysts? Not I.

And so I started the appointment that is the genesis of every cancer journey. The walk to the surgeon's office with your mammogram in tow. The awkward "Nice to meet you, here's my boob" dance of your first meeting with a doctor who is not that much older than you and who happens to know many partners at your law firm. "Great," I kept thinking. "I hope I don't see this guy around the office."

And then, there it was. Using the little ultrasound wand that worked so beautifully on my belly when pregnant, he uncovered the stupid little knot that had not yet shown its face in any other test. It was a black hole in the middle of white tissue, and it was frightening.

"Well, there it is. I don't know why they didn't see it before. It's a lesion. It might be a group of cysts. How about I go in there and do a needle biopsy?" Surgeons have such a way with words.

This was way too much information to take in with one sitting. With my eyes wide and my heart picking up its pace, I said, "Sure, if that's what you think you should do."

Up I went on the examination table that transformed from a chair into an uncomfortable wide-L shape, extending me about 4 feet off the floor. A small prick and I was numb, watching him gouge me with a tiny needle while holding my "lesion" in view with the wand. "It's really tough," he said. "I'm not getting much." I peaked at the needle and noticed a small amount of yellow goo at the bottom of the syringe. Not liquid. Kind of mushy.

Shit. I was hoping for one of those clear-fluid-filled-cysts-so-clear-that-you-know-it's-not-cancer-because-the-cyst-disappears-when-you-drain-it-cysts, but mine was not. Mine was a lesion, a name which made me squirm all by itself. And mine was solid and mine was barely giving anything up. "I'll send it off to the lab," he said. "What's the best place to call you? We should follow up in three months."

Shit. It's really the only word that came to my mind. It's my fall-back curse word when something really bad happens - when I almost miss a deadline or when I almost get in a car accident or when I fall down the stairs (it's only happened once (or thrice - I have fallen twice going up)). I heard his words, but all I could think was, "Shit."

Why would he need to follow up if this is nothing? Why is it not liquid if this is nothing? Why is this sounding less and less like nothing? No one in my family has breast cancer. Only my grandmother - and hers was post-menopause. And she smoked for fifty years or something like that. This can't be. This is nothing. I'm being silly. Shit.

I cried in the car when I told Mark about the appointment. I just had to let the stress out. My OB was convinced (95% sure) that it was nothing, so it has to be nothing. But it might not be. Every cancer journey begins with a needle biopsy. Couldn't I be on the same journey without knowing it at this point? Yes. The answer is yes. It is possible.

And so I wait. And so I appreciate Anna's laugh a little more, and I keep secrets from those who would worry most, hoping that in the end I will tell them something like this: "Mom, I didn't tell you this because I didn't want to freak you out, but I had a biopsy last week. It turns out it's nothing, but they wanted to be sure. I now know the importance of monthly self-examinations!"

My name is Jaime, and I am praying for nothing.

Biopsy results today, "Everything is fine," said the nurse. I replied, "That's great. Do I still have to follow up?" She answered, "Yes."

I don't have cancer, but I am a woman, and I am entering a totally new phase of life. Worries like partnership track or fertility are nothing compared to life and death. And so, I live. And so, I am thankful.

I passed a fatal traffic accident on the way to work this past week. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow, and none of us are guaranteed a seat at our kid's high school graduation. Enjoy what you have now and make the most of it. As for the future, all we can do is hope for the best.

Testing...one, two, three, four?

2011-03-01T18:15:00.001-08:00

For every fertility-challenged woman out there, her time is broken down into four weeks.

Week 1: This includes day 1 and hence confirmation that you are NOT pregnant. Before I had the toddler I used this week to drink wine and complain and cry out all of my frustration. Now that I have a kid and the frustration is diluted, I use this week to "stay positive" and regroup and re-strategize. This makes no sense to most of you, but there are about 1,000 blogs out there giving you new tips on what to eat, what not to eat, what to drink and not drink, what vitamins to take, etc. I review some of these during week 1, peruse my Fertility Diet Book (that I have yet to strictly follow - she has this whole thing against potatoes that confounds me; have you ever heard of the Irish having problems with fertility?), and promise to work out more and eat better.

Week 2: This is the big ovulation week. This week entails taking an ovulation kit with you to work so that you can test mid-day, (when it works best, how convenient!) wait for the day in which the smiley-face appears (which will tell you your the best 2-3 days) and, well, you know.

Week 3: This is the week where I tell myself that I'm probably not pregnant, but that I could be, and so I won't drink wine and I'll lay off caffeine. I only cheat if I go to O'Henry's, and it doesn't really count if good coffee is involved.

Week 4: Could I? Couldn't I? Should I test beforehand? What if I get a false negative? What if I'm pregnant now? (This question entails a visit to babycenter.com to check due dates, fantasize about what a November, December, January due date would be like, etc.). These questions will often lead to: When would I tell people? How would I tell people? (I already have this set for parents and in-laws, which will be really fun if it EVER happens. The best laid plans...).

And so, here I am, stuck in the middle of week 4, having the "should I test or shouldn't I test" debate.

The options:

To test: This is kind of like ripping off the band aid. You go ahead and take the test, and for 3 minutes all of your hopes and dreams bubble into your heart and you wait with bated breath to see the outcome. When the eventual negative result is revealed, you tell yourself that it wasn't meant to be and that you'd rather have a nice Thanksgiving anyways, and whatever other stupid reason you can come up with as to why you're not that disappointed.

Not to test: This leaves you wondering for days (sometimes SEVERAL days if you are not a dependable 28-day gal, which I am not) wondering ifs or if nots at any point in the day when you're not busy. I sometimes find myself surprised that I haven't thought about it in a few hours, only to lead to more thinking. Then, mother nature taps you on the shoulder and says, "Why dear, you're not pregnant after all. Now, let's get on with your day and start week 1 again, okay? Stay positive! Regroup! Re-strategize! You're just 34. You have plenty of time left."

My name is Jaime, and I hate week 4 most of all.

I am not Brittany Spears

2011-02-15T20:50:00.001-08:00

I do not share that many things in common with Brittany Spears. I am not blond. I have a law degree. And, I cannot have children quite as easily.

I don't begrudge her, just as I don't begrudge all of you people out there who get pregnant on the first try, by accident, or when you wanted to but weren't "really trying" (I have no idea what this means). However, it still annoys me. So, to all of you preggars people out there right now, you're just a touch annoying. We clear?

I have a two year old, so I know that the feat is not impossible. We tried for ten months until she popped up on a pregnancy test, and then she arrived very promptly on her due date. What she took to get here she made up for in timely delivery- one of the 5% of all babies who arrive on their chosen date.

So, I'm trying not to lose hope. I just endured a test called the HSG (Google if you must), and this test immediately preceded the creation of our tot. The test wouldn't be so bad if I didn't know my fertility doc socially, which means that someone I have eaten with has a full view of things that most people do not. We talked about wedding plans for his daughters and my wedding to the Hubs and I tried to pretend that we were out on his patio instead of chatting over my torso on an x-ray table. It's just so romantic - this process that we must go through in order to bear children. Not at all what I heard about in junior high. Not at all.

And so continues our journey for child #2. I don't know how much I'll update and I don't know with whom I shall share, but I just needed to bear something tonight. So, here it is. My name is Jaime, and I've been trying to have a kid for 10 months. (This is where you say, "Hi, Jaime.").

Sleep in Heavenly Peace

2009-12-28T20:08:00.001-08:00

I learned weeks ago why the ghosts took Scrooge to his past haunts. Some places take you back in time, with or without the apparitions.

My friend Candace killed herself when we were young and foolish enough to think that the world began and ended with the love of a boy. She ended her world shortly after the boy broke up with her, and changed all of ours as well. Her wake was held at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Roebuck, where my nephew and niece happened to have their piano recital twelve years later.

Not knowing exactly where my little relatives would tap the keys, we first went to the chapel - the only building I had ever visited at the church. When we opened the doors I saw her casket again. Her almost-black hair straight and neat, her terrible makeup, her colorful-not-at-all-Candace dress. I think it was purple. I saw it all and I felt it all and the world didn't make sense, even with my little girl in my arms.

I wish there were a moral. I wish that there was some lesson that could be learned from her tragedy. I wish that some part of it made sense, or that after all of these years it wouldn't bring me to tears. But, there is none. It doesn't. It never will.

Suicide is selfish, irrational, thoughtless, cruel. But I'm not mad at suicide. I keep telling myself that I'm not mad at Candace anymore, either. I'm sad that it happened to her, sad that it happened to me, sad that it took so many lives with one bullet, one irrational obsession over one stupid boy - assuming that was at least part of the reason. But, I'll never know. And, it doesn't matter. It changes nothing.

The recital wasn't terrible. In years past I would have broken in such moments and turned to drink or long whining discussions with close friends, but the panic attacks and hopelessness have subsided. I woke from the nightmare, listened to the eager little voices sing their Christmas songs and the hopeful pianists pick their tunes and I packed my toddler into her car seat and headed to another Christmas party. I learned no lessons of tragic past and I do not keep Christmas every day of the year.

I will never forget Candace, though. May she rest in peace, and may we all learn to let her do so.

You can't have everything.

2009-05-31T14:59:00.000-07:00

You can't have everything, baby.

I couldn't have you. I couldn't have every first step, every waking breath.

I couldn't take you to the park when Spring arrived, or kiss you on the cheek the first time you fell down.

Just a few hours a day, and then weekends and holidays. We'll take you to the beach for a week during the summer, just long enough to get close so that we can send you back again.

If I'm a full time lawyer, does that make me a part-time mom?

I just don't know, baby. I don't know what to do. I want to make you proud, but I don't want to lose you.

You can't get off the track, or you can't get on again. But what if that track leads me away from you?

I hope you'll understand - that you won't feel abandoned. That you won't commiserate with the other kids at after-school care about how your parents both work and left you there.

I hope you won't resent me about time and religion - we're already going to screw with you on that one.

Sometimes I hate the feminists, baby. Without them I'd just be one smart stay-at-home mom.

My little sunshine

2009-04-25T11:02:00.001-07:00

I am not going to turn this into one of those parenting blogs - the ones where you learn that Anna decided that she hates peas today. While her shaking her head emphatically at me each time I tried to approach her with peas cracks me up, I understand that for most readers it would not.

I post the picture to the blog and I write about the little one because she has been a bit all-consuming lately, and it's lovely to be consumed with love. This picture epitomizes her view on the world - she is just happy. She is glad to be anywhere and she loves everyone, and if you do anything remotely entertaining she will give you the biggest grin possible. She doesn't know a stranger and she is interested in everything and everyone. My new goal is to approach life with the same openness and loving heart as my seven month old. May she hold onto this view of life as long as humanly possible.

The Crow

2009-01-07T23:48:00.000-08:00

For some reason we loved “The Crow” in high school. We were obsessed with the flick, and rented it often on our lonesome Saturday nights with a tube of chocolate chip cookie dough. Our metabolisms were much better then, and for some reason we could all stomach the treat – the roll was finished by the final gun shot, by the final closing credit.

There was something beautifully tragic about the lead actor dying during the making of the film. He gave his life to his art, and we were all inspired. More so by his hanging dark locks, black lips, and deep eyes – but inspired just the same. The guns, the violence, the passion - it was a cruel world and we all wanted to be his muse.

One year out of high school, and the cruel world caught up with us. A bullet changed it all with no reasons, no final note. I called to pick her up for a party, and her mother answered in sobs. I remember hearing “Candace is dead.” She stated it as fact – as a verb tense that was incapable of change. I heard it as fiction, unable to grasp the reality of her choice.

She asked why Candace would do this to herself, and then repeated “why” over and over and over again. I didn’t understand. Nothing made sense. All I could tell her was “I don’t know.”

I spread the word to the Crow crew and we skipped the cookie dough. We ate Pizza Hut cheese sticks and Chinese food instead. For some reason that’s what we wanted and on a day like that day my mom was at our beckon call. She couldn’t really help with the agony, so instead we received comfort food.

I remember laughing at her funeral when her ex-boyfriend sat on a tack. Her mother joked that Candace was getting back at him, and we all chuckled. I think we just needed to, knowing that the next few days and months (and, it turns out, years), would be a few laughs short.

I sometimes wonder if she were alive today if we would still be friends; or if she would even care now that a boy named John broke her heart so many years ago. It doesn’t matter. Candace is forever frozen as my friend who wore high socks, short skirts, and loved to roll her eyes at the attention she received from men. She was left behind with me as all of our other friends went off to college, and we spent many a night kissing drunken fraternity boys in dirty houses on the Southside of Birmingham. She would sit for hours looking for four-leaf clovers, but refused to believe that her life was capable of hope or change.

I remember drinking too much and crying too much and wanting to find an answer, but none ever came. There was no reason – at least none that would justify or explain.

Looking back, I sometimes find purpose in her tragedy. No matter how bad it got for any of us who knew her, that was never an option. None of us could or would go out like that – not after Candace. Sure – scars fade after time; but wounds like that never really heal.

Looking Back

2008-12-03T13:03:00.000-08:00

I slip on my high school class ring,
Hoping for some sort of time machine -
But the memories are faded now, the feelings almost gone.
For some reason I am surprised each time that it still fits,
Probably because it doesn't feel like the same finger anymore.
My heart, my head, my body have changed so much since then,
I can't believe that it really happened, much less that it happened to me.
I used to pine for my first love, to ache for my foregone innocence;
But they are both lost to me.
The names are slipping, the faces blurring - the black and white have turned to grey.

But the heart is not so easily put out.
It guides me through the fog to happy memory;
My crush in seventh grade, singing "If you want my body" in the back of the school bus;
My first love calling me beautiful after I was hit by a car,
when I couldn't stand to look in the mirror.
The people are gone, the relationships extinguished,
But the fire is never-ending.
It does not sustain me. It does not define me.
But it will always be a part of who I am.

Publix

2008-11-30T19:05:00.000-08:00

It's strange the symbols which take you into another universe where the past becomes the present and you yearn for its return. I walked into a Publix tonight where I encountered a little old lady with white curly hair in a blue overcoat and plastic hat to keep off the rain. That little plastic hat took my breath away - suddenly that little old lady was my grandmother.

My grandmother was obsessive with keeping weather off of her head (her sinuses) and her Panteen-sprayed hairdo. When it rained she was in her plastic hat and raincoat - whether she was going to church or the supermarket. When it was cold the plastic hat covered a scarf which was wrapped around her head like a bandage. She looked ridiculous, but it was so normal I was never embarrassed or ashamed. I thought it was cute, and that all grandmothers dressed that way.

My grandmother died a few years ago when surgical staff accidentally left a sponge in her lung. She would have died within a year or so of lung cancer, but the sponge shortened her time to one week in a coma. I had never seen anyone die before that 3rd of July. She was on a respirator, so after the nurse or doctor (I can't remember which) told us "she is gone," her little lungs (or lung) kept filling up and deflating with oxygen. I wondered how you could be dead in such a state, but she was just the same. After a few minutes, they finally turned off the machines and it felt a little more real. I saw my father cry, my brother cry, and I think I shed a few - but nothing like I thought. I was more mesmerized by the fact that after death we kept making her breathe - for someone who struggled so much the past week to do just that, it just seemed strange.

When people die I miss them, but it takes years for me to understand how much. It took a little old lady in a plastic hat for me to cry about my grandmother tonight. I wanted her alive to hold my baby for the first time. I wanted her to give me advice which I would ignore. I wanted her to challenge me about the religious questions I will face raising a daughter in an interfaith home. No one else has the guts to do it, as they probably should not. But, I miss my prying, confident, black-and-white, know-it-all grandmother.