What is the complete importance? The importance of a woman. The importance of a woman crushing, crushing so completely she has no existence, crushing to others where this brings actions and decisions of life and death.
I can remember running, running through the past. Through the past with a life of my own, always my own. I remember living in the dark, living outside of everyone else. I remember my pains and fears always being my own. I remember the embarrassment always being my own.
The houses and buildings were always so lined straight up and the streets perfectly straightly lined up in rows. I could see them but never relate to myself being in any of them. That would have been another person to me. I sometimes would try to feel relation to these places and would venture but it felt too unfamiliar.
The times of my life would eventually lead me to such a clear concise decision to this. One day…..
I remember one day…. One day…. One cold Halloween day, when I lost my daughter, my child, my unborn fetus that moved before its death, that I heard its head, possibly not its head hit the step-up shiny silver garbage bucket that you so often see in the doctors office as it was tumbled into the bucket it contained of the doctors' offices of the 60’s and 70’s. They must have mass produced them for medical buildings and offices. They must have been a cheap price because you would see them everywhere, at least where I went. They left you with this cold feeling, as I describe them, to let out through the space that you were in of the kind of people you were dealing with. Once again, that day I was on my own.
I had always been on my own though. I didn’t believe I was living in a dream but I was. I started to think I was sick yet it seemed everyone else acted the same way as me. I just felt a little more alone and closed in about it. You didn’t talk about those things in those days, you just acted on it. Whether you were going to kill yourself, drink or do drugs, or just possibly act out. I was just quiet. I always decided I would handle mine that way. We all must have made a choice. I guess that was mine.
I think that was wrong, even though sometimes when you act out there are repercussions to this. You could be put away. You could be labeled. They could even take you to court and force you to take some kinds of medications. I didn’t want that. I knew the repercussions of that, especially in my neighborhood, or state or area of upbringing. I had been told of it.
I wanted a man instead, a boy, at first, in my life to take this all away. Not an education, not a future revolving around my wants and needs, just a man to help shield me from all these horrible decisions and this horrible life I felt placed upon me. I felt this was the only way out of a scary life.
This was important to me. This was my reason for not putting any of the important things for me first. I felt fear to make these decisions to come to this outcome. I didn't feel I could get close to any dreams unless I had a shield from a man or boy to get me there where I needed to be and through my life.
I tell you now open as I ever can be because it doesn’t matter any more. Anything and everything has already been done that someone can do to me, I just didn't realize it.
Maybe I can make it matter through you. If it matters it would make sense and come out and have some meaning and not stand alone.
Standing alone was all I knew. I had so much attention to give me the warm smiles that would carry me through. I thought this was my antidote. I thought the attention was my medication to carry me through my pain. I knew others had pain but mine would not be seen and had by anyone as I didn’t know needed to be to save me from this pain, to save my child, my child that needed me.
I didn’t know I had pain from losing the child I'm going to tell you about that day and how it happened because I was young and naive. I thought what I had I still could overcome all that I had and might go through in life. These kinds of things just happen and you have to accept them I thought. They happen to everyone. They happened to me even though I thought they never would. It never would be believed or accepted by anyone in my area had I told them that I was pregnant was what I thought. I would have to leave home and I was estranged from my father.
I had looked and dreamed of having a baby in my life as long as I can remember. I was told I was sick because I would take all the baby pictures I could in clothing catalogues and point out the ones that I thought were the cutest to picture as being mine. I would beg my mom to have another baby as a child. I might have been eight or even younger when this started. People or at least one of my aunts said this was ill. But I didn’t have a good relationship with any of this side anyway because it was thought that I wasn’t my father’s child. A bastard child I was to my mother's troughs of men she would bring in to my father's bed while he would still be at work. So it was hard to see if the feelings from these supposed outsiders of family were honorable towards me.
I don’t think I ever actually wanted to have those babies myself, at least carry them, but I did want them around in the house to be ours as a family and mostly to be mine to spend most of the time with. My dad had asked my mom one time of this to have another baby when we were older and my face lit up. My moms didn’t. My dad would have even added on to our house which was a huge statement seeing as we never had finished steps but cement to enter the front of the house and no shutters, and doors on our bedrooms up through my early teens, which I would always ignore my house as I would drive by with my friends hoping they wouldn't notice it was my house. I was too embarrassed.
My mom felt she couldn’t have another baby. The pain was too much to bear and it would wear on her health. My brother was too long and his feet were always hitting her rib cage when she carried her last pregnancy. It was an unbearable pregnancy for her. Her's with me on the other hand was so easy even up to the time of delivery. I was the smallest baby born, I think. Yet she would always mention the dimples and chubbiness of me when I was little, a baby I'm sure because it seemed that we never had any food, or at least myself because I wasn't allowed a lot of the extra's such as lunch money or clothing of mine bought since I was thought of as not being my dad's. My stomach shrunk because of this and I was always underweight.
I remember seeing one snapshot picture of myself when I was a baby and I looked so miserable and abused. I was so astonished and wanted to hug myself. There were never any baby pictures around the house except one of my sister because my father felt it was too expensive. My sister was the first so this was snuck in forgivingly. That one got through. My mother snuck it in while my dad was at work.
Later my father would get a film projector instead. We were a bit older and we would watch and cherish these even right after he would take them. We were never bored of them. We would laugh and enjoy them and make fun of eachother in them. Those were good moments. They meant the world to us. It was amazing how things could turn around from one extreme in a feeling to the other.
When I mentioned the feelings of what I saw in the only photo my mom had of me when I was a baby she disposed of it not realizing that it showed any odd signs up until I mentioned how miserable I looked. I said innocently 'Geez, what did you do to me? Did you beat me? I look miserable.' I almost looked abused. BUT my eyes were SO big. That astonished me. I remembered later her always throwing me into a crib with a bottle but never thought anything of it later in life. I wouldn't do that to my children as you know now. I was the supposed sick one that had to be around babies so much!!
She looked scared and ashamed and frightened that I could read into this. I was used to this though. I usually would get reprimanded for reading into things that led this way. I wanted the picture but didn't think of it until later. She said she had already thrown it out. Not to bring light of anything significant, but it seemed important or at least something I wanted to have is a baby photo of myself being that young.
My eyes were so large in the photo. They almost looked large and brown. My eyes were always told to me that they were too small and brown, yet they're green, or hazel, and large, when they're where they're supposed to be which isn't often. I wondered if I cried a lot as a baby.
I wondered why no one else ever knew how large my eyes really were. I had wondered how they shrunk even as an adult and if this could be done in some mysterious way physically, but yet I knew back in my mind deeply that it couldn’t. I obviously had been and was suffering from abuse for a long time. You didn't even need to drink to look this way. I started to feel resentful that I was the only one to know that I really did have big eyes and felt or at least wished others knew, especially those close to me. I didn’t have that defect that others thought I did, at least I felt it was a defect.
I was luckier than most. I would get so many compliments on my looks it seemed ridiculous to complain that I deep down was sad and hurt and didn't speak of it. Others didn’t know I had all these feelings that I was going through. I had feelings like others that brought pain to me when things were done to me and I felt I had them hidden and they couldn't see them or I couldn't reach to the ones who wanted to help me. Sometimes I could feel some didn't want to see.
I was voted the prettiest girl in my senior high school class and nominated Homecoming Queen my senior year but that didn't stop these pains and thoughts, though I held on tight to these moments for what they could give me. I could have had a hundred smiles coming my way that would not have stopped these pains. I wished they could. I was very popular because of the young man I was seeing or so I felt.
I later would suffer from abuse and stalking which came from these negative feelings because they led the abusers in and I wondered whether or not it just dredged me away from me and who I really was and just covered everything up that I had gone through up to that point.
I let people hit me because I either thought I deserved it or didn't know how to make it stop. It came though that I wasn’t able to hide in my own world anymore. It was of someone else’s. It was of more than one person in my life who was sick who felt they could abuse me being their choice to deal with their misery by putting physical pain onto me and taking control of my life feeling it would make theirs better.
I do believe that those who commit crime are sick and I know it is a crime to hit someone or take control of their thoughts or minds from them so they feel hopeless and helpless. It wasn’t in my own dark corner any more, it was a corner of me and my abusers.
I say abusers because there were more than one. I know why now because the word seems to get out that you have a weakness and the bad people or in my case mostly bad men, close in on you. They seem to spot your weakness out a mile away. These men put a dirty blanket covering my already defected life which the abuse was covering it with a blanket already as well within me hidden so deeply inside of me with all of the effects.
Just when I wanted to write my book and make contact with this world when I thought I hit a light and could heal all with my thoughts and words it all came down on me. I didn't realize that you had to want to be healed and some bad people don't want to be healed. Just because I wanted this new open and wonderful life didn't mean that others did, especially my abusers, and perhaps even to bring me down at this time when I hit an all high.
I could feel the dark closing in on me as I made my choice to do this. But I still hadn't dealt with the abusers by even telling anyone of what had been done to me. I thought I could forget this and move on. Not only did I still need help emotionally but I was still in harms way and I didn't know it to the effect that it ever could bring on me. I was labeled a weak young woman by these abusers who gave in to abuse all the way through my adult years. I had been too frightened or embarrassed to tell my story. This led my path to other abusers coming into my life.
I thought this book could perhaps even bring love and light to those I so deeply cared about and wanted to highlight their best assets. This I remember was when the abuse started again. I had finally known what I wanted to do all my life, tell my story of love for others in a forgiving way. I had been praised for writing. I had run from the feelings of abuse and maybe even conquered them possibly to the effects of the best well-known doctors even it would seem in my mind. I had done all this on my own. It didn’t seem that I had any amplification from this. But what I was starting to feel was my abusers closing me off from everyone so I couldn't tell my story. I also had to realize just because I wanted to highlight those that I cared about didn't mean they wanted to be part of this.
It is sad but sometimes true and scary to us but the ones we end up sharing our most intense and intimate moments with our new friends and people outside of our circle, but they can bring much new joy and hope in our lives.
I thought I was well and cured and knew I saw the light of my adult journey. I was twenty-five at the time I wanted to write this book. At twenty-eight when I was defeated to all of this I had not written my book and now was daized and wandering in and out subconsciously to the thoughts of my unborn daughter and the horrid feelings would blast through me as shock like someone had just come to my door and reported I lost a child while I walked the street of New York City. It was that bad. I couldn't believe how bad my mind was. I couldn't believe how bruised, broken, and a wreck it was. I got scared and at that point knew there was something deeply wrong with me.
The day I walked into the offices of that large brick building which I still am not sure of the city, could have been Chelsea, MA, was the day that made the impact and journey of my life to bring me to the conclusion of domestic violence. I had not been able to look at it until then. I would have never know that day would bring such silence, so much command, and a destined path in a journey to my life.
I didn't realize at that time how much life and death meant. I had been taught never to kill. My faith was strong and adamant to these teachings. I never had heart to even think this way. I had felt I would go to hell. I was afraid of this very much. I was also afraid to have normal sexual tendencies and feelings. I felt that I was taught this was wrong so I had been very closed in and never spoke of any of it.
Because of my teachings and believings I felt that as a young adult my sexual feelings were wrong and dirty and had to be kept to myself. I hadn't even shared the real sexual experiences whether small or large to my best friends. I felt if I kept this between me and God he would forgive me. But as I took my teenage journey into the vast world of sex the feelings I was having at the time could not be resisted. I wanted love, no matter what the cost. I wanted safety and security. I felt I could not fight this even physically with the pressure I felt to do these things. It would turn out that it was a way of my life.
It would also turn out that the decisions of my life would not always be mine, it seemed more this way than not it would turn out to be my entire life. My past path led me to this and it was untreated. It is funny how one decision and one turn in your life can impact your entire life. I think of many times before this day in Chelsea that if I had spoken up perhaps more clearly to the definition of counseling verses possibly giving in to the others on the other end of my phone conversations just to get me an appointment so I wouldn't have to give away where I was going to get me into those offices to reach these people for help to deal with parenting issues and before ever attending or communicating with this horrible place of murder and child abuse that possibly I would not have been there this day, this day of the last conscious moment that I remember ever thinking clearly fully about anything in my life. The day that I was able to make thoughts and sense of anything 100%. The day that I was not in shock, fright, fear, and learned to mistrust every other human being on earth. That is what this day brought to me. But we were all young and I felt so much fear, fright, and embarrassment anyway that I could just sneak in to these people would be so appreciated. I knew they would be kind and understand and help me. These people making the appointments would never hurt me. But they were young and naive too just as I. We weren't adults dealing with an adult situation.
I also think that if I gave my parents a chance to shoot me down, punish me, throw me out, or disown me would have been a greater chance in my life for this horrible day not to happen. Or if I even spoke to another adult this would have not happened.
See, I was being abused then. This is what it is. I was being pressured into this by the man that impregnated me. He did not want the child and he was of age and I was not. I was very estranged from my mom and thought of, or at least I thought, as the dirty girl from the wrong side of the tracks. This may work in the movies but not in this case. This prince charming as I still thought he was or at least at close at it was going to get was not going to whisk this problem away for me and go along with what I had in mind. He certainly wasn't going to marry me, at least not then. He wanted no part in this process except to get rid of this baby. He had been adamant of it. Where I had been hit by him before I didn't realize I was withdrawn and had to tell someone. I was going through teen domestic violence.
I had already been hit by this boy, or man which he legally was. I had no idea what being hit by a man would do to me. It impacted me so bad that I was making bad decisions in my life. I felt with my life already being a mess I was better to keep quiet and not make it worse, but it did get worse and I can't look back and change what happened or my path but I can try and make it better. I know I may not have been voted all those things, I probably would have missed the prom, I probably even would have been kicked out of my mom's house. I probably would have been living with my dad and had raised my child. I would have been closed off from my town. But I ended up being closed off anyway when I couldn't take the abuse anymore and ended up leaving this man. I was looked upon as being the bad person because no one knew what I had been through. I never told anyone. I was taught it was better and made you a better person to be quiet. I felt I had no recourse and more importantly, I was scared. I was scared of my abuser and thought he would hurt me. He would scare me and threaten me many times even after I had left him.
As I made my way through the halls dressed in white that day, I could feel the coldness of the sheet-like clothing draped so large on me. I think there were wrinkles. There were possibly huge drapes of this sheet-like thing that I believe I actually climbed into. I didn't feel my hands or I would have remembered. I do remember feeling my feet because when I put one of the socks they gave me to put on my left foot I remember coming to a bit when my foot hit the floor. It was a cold, old, scratched scary floor. It was telling me to what I had to do, I might possibly die if not.
There were bad illegal men very close by. I had already been threatened to this if I tried to push the facilities choice to give me the abortion after I screamed and the meds they gave me hit me at that point. I felt faint and I was told they were taking effect now. I couldn't feel the baby move inside anymore.
They made sure that I had felt it before they killed it I felt so sure to this, these horrible wicked people who never would be held accountable to this because I would never remember where I had been. I never signed for this and never had a parent present so I have no idea how they could have gotten away with this. I almost bled to death as the counselor screamed in my ear to shut up. The pain was so bad.
I had the largest hole and glory of light around me when these people were intervening with me before I thought. I could feel as I thought we were about to discuss my babies options with me because my baby was moving now, it kicked right at the moment. I felt this glee and I was so certain this woman counselor felt the same glee and pleasure with me. But how insane was I when she showed no emotion to this not even having to turn it off when she showed of no interest and said I had to have the abortion and that the papers were already signed. That's when I screamed and felt the meds and tried to fight.
I knew how bad I wanted this baby and thought I knew at that moment before that I did the right thing coming here, to this woman and she surely was going to help me with my baby. I told her I didn't want to have an abortion just as I told the man who brought me there that he shouldn't think I was going to have one knowing I couldn't fully trust him because he hit me and I needed a ride and money to talk to these people because I wasn't of age.
That's when she intervened that I could not and that it was already signed. I was in shock and tried to scream and stand and fight for myself yet the large gentlemen outside the door was there to keep me in and the valium, at least that was what I was told I was given, seemed to take effect. I don't know why I trusted these people to take it. They said it would come me down to have my counseling. I was fighting the man in my mind but I wasn't making a lot of noising. You could see I was resisting him and turning to them. I guess that's when they thought to get help. It wouldn't seem that this amount of money would be worth what they could be faced with but I guess it was. And if it was so much they were even crueler to make me have it with no anesthesia, of course I would be in shock more and not able to talk of it as easy. I guess it was planned. I guess the man knew.
He did tell me at one point he spoke to the people who set it up but I couldn't believe they would hurt me. He did though so I should have known he wouldn't drive me anywhere safe especially that far from home where I had never been. Heck, I never left my hometown at all except I think once to go to the city with my grandmother. My grandmother had been all over so she was used to this.
I couldn't believe the counselor had any sympathy to tell me what my body was going through seeing as what she was about to take part in. She was so automatic about it.
I was left to feel as though I had just done this act freely and willingly as I sat in the passenger side of the car I left in. I stood up for myself and said you had better never make me do this again. I don't think I was still in my right mind yet at that moment. I still felt a bit drugged and soooo alone. I felt disgusting and dirty and I never wanted anyone to know of this as I slurred these words to him and was never going through this again as he happily smiled and agreed as though I had given him permission to treat me so badly and accepted this kind of treatment. He was so happy to be rid of this responsibility. I couldn't believe it. I actually thought he still loved me a little bit until that moment. He seemed grateful and happy at this and surely smiled and drove off with me.
I was referred to as a dirty little girl in so many words when I was also at the same time written down by the doctor as being in shock as he told me when he was supposedly writing this down when he found out I had consented to sex within the time frame that I was supposed to wait when I went back to this horrible place of shame to be checked. I told the man that I who brought me there and who I was still with but he didn’t seem to care. I said ‘Oh well’, not caring at that point about much and still numb and went and let it happen anyway.
It seems weird I didn't turn them in at that time doesn't it? I was withdrawn and in shock which is what happens to you when you are abused. I was still a child and not strong enough. They played with my mind and made me out to me to be the bad person and to be blamed for this. I wanted to get well and I had no one else that I could tell this about to so who else could check me and give me a clean bill of health. And how was I going to get through this abuse with the man I needed so badly and not get pregnant again where sex was so important to him to keep him. I had to go back in my mind. It was all a part of my life and how I was going to continue to keep it going. I had chosen this path and felt I had to keep it. I was completely more repressed than I had ever been.
As an adult I wasn't strong enough. I surely couldn't handle it as a child. I needed help. I needed someone to reach out to me and take and sit me down and talk to me, someone who cared. I didn't seem strong enough to do it for myself. This is why I do it for you today because I am strong enough to do it today but I wasn't back then.
I was treated by this doctor as though I was a dirty little girl who couldn't even wait to heal after having this horrible thing done that I didn't even want done. But I knew in his mind or at least he wanted me to believe I was totally in blame. How could I feel not? He was a doctor, my man friend who brought me there was well-known and loved in our community. I was given attention by people who would have never given me the time of day if I had not dealt with him, and moreover I was saved from my life as a youngster, at least I thought.
What I didn't realize was that my life could not have gone any worse. Not that I chose this path willingly, but I could have very easily lived without being picked Best Looking and nominated Homecoming Queen compared to losing a child and putting up with an abusive relationship. I could have met a nice guy and gone to college and had vacation like others. But that's not what happened to me but I didn't open up.
I could have lived without going to all the popular parties just to hear my babies voice cry even once. I would have rather if I were forced given my baby up for adoption rather have done than having it killed. That would have been my choice. I could have at least seen it and known it was well. I think all the time of his or her, where I fall on her more, facial features. I keep seeing a dimple in the chin and light hair. I see it looking like the father and I always idealized that he would have loved it and seen it the way I wanted it once it was born or even while me carrying it if he had just given it just a try. But this wasn't true either. He wanted nothing to do with this ever.
I remembered feeling the dirty feeling of sex that was unrelated to me once before with this father of the man I was with to this pregnancy and a police officer when we were caught almost during the act that he had started on himself that I was always resisting and unsure of and even sometimes him driving off with nothing from me as a minor. I hadn't felt I wanted to do the things being requested of me then either and we hadn't even started having a sexual relation at that time.
Where he had started on himself after the police had caught us and referred to me as being the initiator and after a few man words exchanged the officer agreed I had felt a sense of scarred betrayal and guilt, as much as you could at such a young age. The officer reprimanded me of being under age and shameful. He reprimanded the man too but I had not even touched him and wasn't the one with my clothes off and he never even spoke to me before his conclusion. We were told to leave but with most of the blame on me as to what kind of girl I was to be there in the first place.
I could see the beginning of control at that time. I knew this young man knew people. I knew now how powerful the sense of barriers could be on a person and come so close to the most intimate part of you. I had no idea why I was having sex anymore from that point on.
I saw the sense and control this young man had on me at that moment with the police officer and my life in general and how willing this man of authority was willing to take me down personally and in an unfriendly manner. That wasn't good for me either because that caused more mistrust in me to get help from authorities. I had wondered if my name had been spread around as doing other things sexually but I had not ever been with anyone else, not even petting as they called it so long ago.
When I laid down on the table, I believe, I don't remember putting my whole body down onto it, I do remember there being talk of no anesthesia. I remember feeling the thought of fright as I could make the words out in my mind of the fear of this. I was a frightened young girl about to have control taken from my life forever.
And even though the young man who brought me there was probably as naive as I he was still a man and I was a child, so for that I was violated. And in the dictionary of violence this is called domestic violence because I felt pressured or forced to make my decision based on earlier behavior of him towards me.
He was my love I thought, even though I was young, and the relationship initiated itself in a practice I was unaccustomed to, it was an intimate relationship. And even afterwards feeling the pressure to have sex without being able to properly heal after this atrocity still being in shock emotionally I submitted which seemed to come out of nowhere. I couldn't fight anymore. I knew in my mind I physically strong enough to fight anyone. This is what this day left me with.
From that day on I would be threatened and even physically struck to shut my mouth of this this day that I lost my child. I was so numb I knew there was nothing at that point that could change that day. But I didn't realize I still needed to reach out. I couldn't change that day but I could change the outcome of that day. I could turn them in.
I want to be there for other teen victims of violence. I want to be there for teen pregnancy, teens lost, teens being abused, and being abused by domestic violence. This is a horrible atrocity especially to happen to a young woman that is so vulnerable and not aware of how to react to this.
It has been a long road coming to terms with this situation being so young. I find that the more I come to grips with it, even now at my age where it was so long ago, it has been the root of all my pain. I want other young women to know there is hope and other people that you can go to when you feel harm. Don't go to the same barriers that you know are unsafe because you don't know any other way or feeling of security. Reach out to a teacher you trust or some other adult because sometimes your peers don't understand and they are just as scared. They make mistakes too and too feel the pressure you are coming from. This is a lonely place without a parent or an adult role model to guide us. I have moved forward and had lots of struggles in between to come to where I am today. I still struggle over pain of losing my child and I want other teens to know this even though at times it hasn't looked this way.
I hope to be your mentor and have you watching and looking up to me saying I remember what that woman said and it helped me so much!
Children Leaving Home
As we grow older 'we have to play'.
The thoughts, worries, and burdens of being on my own again in this cold cruel world worries me. It even scares me to the point of being alone without my son as he leaves and graduates from school. I know he has been frightened in the past but now those booboos and those frightened thoughts are launching a life of their own. And now I will go back to my empty fearful life as it was before he came into my life. As time has slipped away and I've seen him through to this day and strength I see him turn and look back on me with a slight worry-some tinge in his eye and expression as to these very thoughts and feelings he has come to know and sense and mature in me as a young man. We had run so long and fought a battle so long together and now this battle is just one. But will the battle be with me or others? I hope only with me as this battle is easier to win. I truthfully worry that I may pick up on the same path that I once led without my control to this before he was born.
But I know since then I have learned so much through him that I have a small glimpse that this might not be. Maybe since I've done so much since he has been in my life this won't happen. When I see this glimpse I see how much I've done with him around. How can this be that some of this won't stay with me when he's gone on his journey into his life? I hadn't had time to feel the pain of losing both my parents or my best friend who watched me so dearly. Now I start to look back on this and it scares me.
Sometimes I dream of looking into the ocean on the beach and finding peace dreaming that my writing is with mortal finding me peace and companionship. And maybe some day that bottle will find me and bring me in a new dream that will find its deepest through my soul and into my mind of what I am thinking and needing and wanting so badly that I secretly and subconsciously will be long awaiting for.
I remember now the sounds walking through Christmas lanes with their lights up and bright and music playing as I would dream where I would be as a little girl, a young woman. Would it be this way now? I know I can't go back to those days because they're dangerous but I will dream.
Destiny's Daughter by Frances Altman highlights events in the life of Mary Edwards Walker, maverick suffragist, Civil War doctor and only woman Medal of Honor recipient.
The experience of a young adult trying to figure out what they want to do for employment or education can be overwhelming. My book will give them insight to what it means to be a carpenter. And the progress unions have made in discrimination.
Ge
Margaret Kohel Evans invites her mother's grandchildren to a delightful visit with their grandmother, sharing charming memories of her across eighteen life themes.
