“Now, I’d like to ask some tough questions,” I hesitantly queried my grandma this September. A couple weeks after she began hospice care, my brother and I were visiting our maternal grandmother in a quiet corner of the Texan gulf coast.
True to her matter-of-fact Lutheran German personage, she told me, “Go ahead. If I don’t want to answer, I won’t.”
My elegant and always dignified grandma, who heralded from modest beginnings (she remembers her Minnesotan family being one of the last to get indoor plumbing in her neighborhood), is a storyteller. She is responsible for most of what my family knows about our ancestral history. It is due to her that photos have the names of those pictured, with accompanying birth and death dates, scribed on their backside. Through her stories, we understand our personalities, common history, and how humor imbues all moments not infused with tragedy.
That day in September, she answered all my tough questions. We talked about racial prejudice in the family, difficulties in accepting others, and forgiving people even if they don’t deserve it. My grandmother wasn’t content just with what was easy to talk about; she delved beneath the surface, sometimes even painting an unflattering portrait of a family member, including herself. I treasure her truthfulness more than anything money can buy.
I can see now that the honesty, dignity, and understanding she taught me led to this journalistic career in our distinctive mountain community. Stories intrigue me — I am certain they have to be shared and carried forward. While humans notoriously don’t always learn from our mistakes or victories, we can’t be held back from trying to. Stories allow us to learn from others and ourselves.
While much of media today focuses on trivial numbers-gathering and mind-numbing topics such as Miley Cyrus’ twerking and which talking head talked about whatever hot topic, there are still those of us who believe the purpose of journalism is to delve into the nitty-gritty. Many of the stories in this edition of Moonshine Ink, as in most editions, have backstories that we couldn’t report on, either because no one would speak on record or because public scrutiny limits what can be freely said. Some things aren’t meant for the public sphere, I’ll grant that (my grandmother said at one point on that fine September day, “I’ve never told anybody this.”), but I do give a tip of the hat to those who step up to the plate and speak out about hard-hitting issues despite potential ramifications. How else will we learn?
It calls to mind my sweetheart’s impact on two wonderful young girls we visited recently. They were enamored with my boyfriend and, of course, unicorns. He told them in a sincere tone, “Unicorns fart.” Later, when they showed us their plastic toy unicorn with its glowing horn, they reported to us: ‘Unicorns fart.’ How’s that for sharing the nitty-gritty with the world?
~ Mayumi Elegado
