Eat Your Crust
“Eat the crusts, Amanda. They’ll make your hair curly.”
I can still hear the voice of my gramps saying those words
with a few threads of New Jersey wrapped around them. We’d sit at a small table—4
kids, two parents and two grandparents. No matter how little the elbow room
was, the table was always properly set: bread plate, salad bowl, and water
glass on the right, above the knife.
I remember the little details of that table, knots in the
light colored wood. The faded pink cushions with little blue flowers. The
celery slivers in every salad and the catalina dressing my granny made sure was
on the table—I believed it was just for me.
At some point, every dinner around that table would consist
of Andy, Kelly and me arguing over who got to use the one children’s plate
with the little Pluto caricature printed on it, probably leftover from my
uncle’s childhood. There would be conversations about Granny’s cooking, whether
or not Gramps would make us watch the Lawrence Welk Show after dinner, and how picky
of an eater I was.
Gramps always led the mission to get me to eat everything on
my plate. The Great Depression and hard times from my gramps’ childhood would
never be mentioned. However, starving children in China might be brought up and
so would my gramps’ and granny’s excellent health.
“I don’t know why you won’t eat everything here, Amanda. I
eat everything your gran puts before me, and look at me, my health is great. I
don’t think you realize how good you’ve got it.”
As I cringed through bites of things like baked salmon or
tomato casserole or green beans, my gramps would glance at the remains of a French
bread slice on my plate. I had buttered my bread, consumed the soft insides and
left the hard, heat-kissed outsides behind.
“You know, Amanda. Crust gives you curly hair. Wouldn’t you
like curly hair?”
I did.
I did.
As a child of the eighties, all I wanted in life was big hair and
bangs—big, curled up high with a few curled whisps on my forehead. I remember
when my mom let me perm my hair in third grade, and I crossed my fingers for
body and height and curls. The permanent did not live up to my expectations and
fell out in a month’s time.
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| I am fairly certain I begged my mom to do this to my hair. I am also pretty sure I thought it looked amazing. |
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| My cousin and I with CRIMPED hair and an attempt at big bangs. |
With hope for better tresses, I ate my crusts. I guess I
thought perhaps the brown outsides of bread held some kind of hair-curling
nutrient. I think I was in seventh grade brushing out my fine straight hair
when it occurred to me, I had been eating my crusts for years and still didn’t
even have a wave. I’d been duped. Bread crusts having magic hair-curling
properties was a myth just like tooth fairies, Santa Claus, and “don’t make
that face or it’ll stay that way permanently.”
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As my gramps is living out his last days… hospice has been
called, his body is shutting down, he has forgotten who each one of his
grandkids are… I feel like I am grieving the loss of my granny, my childhood
days spent at their house all over again along with grieving the loss of my
gramps. I am mourning the passing of a generation. As my parents become my
grandparents and I become my parents, I marvel at the way time marches onward,
and it does not stop.
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| Gramps, Granny and my dad. Circa 1952 |
When you leave this earth, you can’t take anything with you, you can only leave behind.
I think it's in all of us to want to know that at the end of our life that we will leave behind something good, something that lasts, something that keeps
getting passed on.
As I try to think of what it is my Gramps would pass on, I think
of bread crusts. The way as a child I wanted to just eat the soft insides and
avoid the bitterness and hardness of the crust. The way I didn’t want to eat
what wasn’t pleasant.
And don’t I sometimes want to live life that way? I open my
hand to the beautiful wedding day, the snuggles and the
I-love-you-to-the-moon-and-backs, the house and the yard with the tire swing.
But sometimes I want to close my hand to the hard, the hard parts in marriage,
the temper tantrums in the grocery stores, the miscarriages, the job losses,
the times of more month than money. I see the good stuff as a gift but I fail
to see the value in the hard stuff.
My grandparents were crust eaters. Overcomers. Hard workers.
People who married for life even on the bad days. People who lived through wars
and Depressions and things like obstinate children who joined the Marines instead of the Navy, a disabling injury, many cross country (and even cross world) moves, and the death of a grandchild. They were people who
knew the value of everything put on their plate.
They knew how good they had it.
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| (Left) My gramps and granny on their wedding day. Wasn't my gramps handsome? (Right) circa 2003 |
To this day, I still eat my crust. And I am learning to “eat
my crust” here where sometimes it’s hard and it doesn’t always make sense or
seem fair. I might not have curly hair, but I know how good I’ve got it.
Care to reminisce
with me? What is one thing your grandparents always told you to do?
By Grace,
Amanda Conquers
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