A Matter of Unimportance

15. Number Three

I was practicing being gentle with my grandfather. The results were mixed. I just hated to think of myself as an angry person. It was a work in progress, but being a gentle person mattered more to me than my own anger. I was drinking a lot of tea. I was gardening. I was studying my French. I was taking a lot of intentional deep breaths. Calme-toi, de'accord.

It helped to try and think of things from the perspective of others. I stayed up late trying to recall conversations I'd had with my mother. She'd said nice things about my grandfather Benjamin before. She told me how he used to take her for walks when she was young. He'd sing to her while she skipped down the sidewalk on the way to church. They were gospel songs. He made her feel like she was floating. I needed to not be yelling at the man that made my mom float.

School was back in full swing anyways and since I'd missed more than a week for my time at the reservation, I had plenty of catch up to be doing. It helped fill the time since I was staunchly refusing any sort of meaningful social life. Harrison was kind of gutted to lose his party buddy.

Another development that occurred while I was missing: Bonnie and Cameron broke up.

Bonnie had never been shy about giving me details, which was why it was kind of infuriating that she wouldn't tell me why. I didn't even know who did the dumping. I couldn't tell if it had been mutual. Neither of them would talk about it. I just knew that Bonnie was very visibly devastated and that Cameron couldn't bring himself to look her in the eye. He seemed pretty similarly broken up about the entire thing. Our foursome felt quite awkward during lunch times in the aftermath, and Cameron started drifting over to his friends from science club occasionally. I gave them both Smokey quartz crystals to help with the conflict.

I really missed Whaya during this time. I thought I was maybe allowed to call her, but since she hadn't called me I settled for sending a letter to her new home. It was vague. It wasn't exactly likely, but I was scared to put something incriminating into writing lest someone intercept it. She'd been my confidant and I couldn't risk allowing myself to feel like our conversations were being watched. Instead of trying to divulge anything serious to her, I told her I missed her. I told her I was thinking of strength for her and that I'd appreciate it if she could return the favor. I asked how to get into her presence again.

There's art and power in language by the way. I'd not given Whaya anything of my recent struggles, but I still felt lighter to know that I could reach her in written word. Even though that letter was vague I edited it several times. I chose my words carefully.

I'm avoiding talking about Adeline and Roy Barker at the moment, but I'll come to them soon. Just know that this awkward half peace lasted only a month. Then the Christmas season began.

I was being kind to Grandfather Benjamin because I wanted it to make me a more gentle person. Building myself into that meant getting a Christmas tree.

We'd never celebrated Christmas before. Christmas to Grandfather Benjamin meant baby Jesus Christ was born(This was prior to long haired Jesus and the nasty business with the nails), so that meant church. We always spent Christmas morning in church. Children sang gospel songs and cookies were passed around. Family's always regarded us respectfully, and mothers smiled in my direction. The youth group that Grandfather Benjamin thought I hung out with on a nearly daily basis got to see me on a day that wasn't a Sunday. I always wore a jacket with the button up shirt I wore and my hair was always pulled back attempting to appear as short as possible.

On this particular Christmas I tried to make Christmas cheer a part of baby Jesus's birthday. I found us a Christmas tree.

Don't ask me how I got the tree. That doesn't matter. If they actually cared they would have watched it better.