My grandfather had a pet fly. The same fly every year. I believe his name was Bub.
My Mom told me this with a grin. As a child, she didn’t know that flies don’t live too long, and had thought he really had a pet that returned year after year. A charming thing for my grandfather to do, who was always hilarious in a very understated way. With the same grin, she told me how he used to hit her.
She said he knocked her across the floor one time and she “saw stars”. He also beat my grandmother, she said. And most of her siblings. Still smiling, she told me he was a man who was unhappy with his lot in life, and took it out on his family. “He didn’t mean it. That’s just how he was raised.”
This was enlightening for 12-year-old me, and as time passed it helped to explain the entrenched obedience to men that my mother had. Her ability to make excuses, to see her worth based on how much she could endure. My grandfather had mellowed by the time I came around. Born in 1899, he was a treasure trove of stories, chocolates, and someone who could identify every tree and bird. He was nothing but kind to me. I experienced a very different man than my mother did.
My father was a lot like my grandfather, as it turns out. This allowed my mother to continue her excuses and to endure, until the shock of my brother’s death moved her to reluctant action. He never laid a hand on me, however. I did find him frightening and cruel, but only verbally.
My son had a totally different experience of my father, who lavished him with praise and the occasional check for $5,000. Age had mellowed him as well, but not so much that my son couldn’t see the potential cruelty lurking just under his skin. When my father disliked something, he said exactly what he was thinking.
“He didn’t mean it,” I often told my son on the ride home. “That’s just how he was raised.”