Home for the holidays
My family left our house in Palo Alto to have dinner at a old family friend's house in Virginia. Before we left, my parents turned on the hose in the garage and left it running so the dog could give himself a bath while we were gone.
We drove for many hours to this friend's house, and once we reached a stretch of road around a lake in coastal Virginia, we got lost. We were circling a giant trailer park that I couldn't decide was full of poor people or rich people that liked slumming until my mother said that this was where rich people lived. The trailer park was so large with many wings of numbered homes that we had to wait to get instructions from this family friend to tell us which trailer she was in. She finally called my cell phone, exasperated, around 11 pm to ask us where we were and we clarified the directions with her. I thought it was rude that we were so late for a dinner but no one else in the family seemed to mind.
We entered the trailer and met the family friend, an older African-American woman with messy grey-streaked hair. She was warm, extremely motherly, and was overjoyed to see us. There were about twelve dishes already on the table and we dug in. Strangely, the gravy was so heavy I could barely lift it.
Dr. Phil apparently took over as dream muse at this point as I realized there was a small blond girl eating with us who looked scared and dejected (and really looked like Lily, Eminem's mom's kid in 8 Mile, now that I think of it.) Her parents had been fighting earlier, she said, and she felt bad. I asked her if she thought it was her fault, and she nodded. I told her that it definitely wasn't, kissed her forehead, and hugged her tightly for several minutes, until I realized the rest of my family was staring at me.
We continued eating, but this family friend left and went behind a printed sheet that split the trailer into two. We kept eating, finished the meal, and found a large table of desserts around the corner. My brother wanted to start eating the fudge brownies shaped like stars, but I thought we should wait for this friend, and why wasn't she spending more time with us anyway?
I looked around the trailer and saw several pictures of my stepdad's family, as well as a photo of this woman getting married many years ago; she and her husband married while wearing these large ceramic animal costumes (the husband was dressed like a frog.) This woman's relationship to our family suddenly seemed quite bizarre.
It was at this point that my mother told me that this woman was a descendent of some slaves that used to work for my mother's father at their plantation in Louisiana but that she had always remained friendly with the family. I was furious, and couldn't believe that my family wouldn't deign to eating with a slave descendent and still wanted her to just be the kitchen help.
We drove for many hours to this friend's house, and once we reached a stretch of road around a lake in coastal Virginia, we got lost. We were circling a giant trailer park that I couldn't decide was full of poor people or rich people that liked slumming until my mother said that this was where rich people lived. The trailer park was so large with many wings of numbered homes that we had to wait to get instructions from this family friend to tell us which trailer she was in. She finally called my cell phone, exasperated, around 11 pm to ask us where we were and we clarified the directions with her. I thought it was rude that we were so late for a dinner but no one else in the family seemed to mind.
We entered the trailer and met the family friend, an older African-American woman with messy grey-streaked hair. She was warm, extremely motherly, and was overjoyed to see us. There were about twelve dishes already on the table and we dug in. Strangely, the gravy was so heavy I could barely lift it.
Dr. Phil apparently took over as dream muse at this point as I realized there was a small blond girl eating with us who looked scared and dejected (and really looked like Lily, Eminem's mom's kid in 8 Mile, now that I think of it.) Her parents had been fighting earlier, she said, and she felt bad. I asked her if she thought it was her fault, and she nodded. I told her that it definitely wasn't, kissed her forehead, and hugged her tightly for several minutes, until I realized the rest of my family was staring at me.
We continued eating, but this family friend left and went behind a printed sheet that split the trailer into two. We kept eating, finished the meal, and found a large table of desserts around the corner. My brother wanted to start eating the fudge brownies shaped like stars, but I thought we should wait for this friend, and why wasn't she spending more time with us anyway?
I looked around the trailer and saw several pictures of my stepdad's family, as well as a photo of this woman getting married many years ago; she and her husband married while wearing these large ceramic animal costumes (the husband was dressed like a frog.) This woman's relationship to our family suddenly seemed quite bizarre.
It was at this point that my mother told me that this woman was a descendent of some slaves that used to work for my mother's father at their plantation in Louisiana but that she had always remained friendly with the family. I was furious, and couldn't believe that my family wouldn't deign to eating with a slave descendent and still wanted her to just be the kitchen help.
posted by mayfly at 7:36 AM
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