I am remembering summers at my grandmother’s house. We’d pull a yellow dandelion from the cool earth and pluck the head off while exclaiming in a sing- song voice “Mama has a baby and it’s head popped off!” So many childhood oddities that we just thought of as fun and games.

We didn’t have a park close by, but two blocks away was a cemetery, so Grandpa would take me and my sister for a walk through the cemetery and we’d sing songs along the way. His favorite was “Found a Peanut,” which inspired his prayer “Now I lay me down to sleep/with a bag of peanuts at my feet/if I should die before I wake/I know it’s ’cause of a belly ache/.” He got a chuckle out of that. I loved to hear my grandfather laugh, it brought me great comfort.

“You kids are growing like weeds!” Aunt Carrie would proclaim. She lived upstairs from my grandparents, and we would be obligated to visit once a week. We were to sit on the couch with bodies still, and while we could look at the candy dish we were not to touch it or ask for a piece of candy. One day Aunt Carrie came downstairs to visit us, and we showed her a tape recorder. We encouraged her to talk into it and she sang “You are my Sunshine.” When we played it back for her she couldn’t believe a contraption could do such a thing.

Grandma didn’t sit still for long in those days. She was always in the kitchen fixing a meal. You knew not to ask what was for dinner, but my sister did it anyway. Then Grandma would rant for a while; I can’t recall her words; I know that I hoped it would be a short rant instead of a long one. When we went for long car rides and I was tired, Grandma would let me rest my head on her lap. One day I asked her what Grandpa’s boy’s club was, and she told me it was AA. I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew not to ask.

I knew not to ask. Does every young child become the keeper of family secrets? How do we instinctively understand what does not go beyond our dwelling? I knew from my grandmother’s tone of voice that the activities of the boy’s club were not to be discussed. When I was holding my cereal bowl, trying not to spill it when my first step-father slapped my face and yelled “stop crying!” I knew that was just between the two of us.

When I was twelve, running barefoot from a hotel room saying “I don’t love you that way,” I used my voice to tell my story. I had a mother who gently and reassuringly said “tell me what happened.” Those were words of healing, and I felt heard, but there still had to be some secrets because it wasn’t just us, there were others, and they would notice he was not there anymore. I think the intent was to protect me. Good intentions, to be sure. Mama had a baby and it’s head popped off. I still have weeds growing inside of me, planted where I don’t really want them; I just need a little tending to from time to time.