Link to the second part of the memoir: “Gratitude in Darkness,” A Memoir By Dustin Pickering, Serialized In Himalaya Diary, Part 2 – Himalaya Diary -Leading News Portal from Nepal, Kathmandu, Asia
Gratitude in Darkness
A Memoir by Dustin Pickering
Part 3
“I figured out the problem, and the problem is YOU!” -John Lydon
“In the world you’ll have trouble. Just remember, I’ve overcome the world.” –John 16:33
My grandmother passed away many years ago. The grieving was so trying on me that I nearly had a heart attack. I was in the hospital with atrial fibrillation. My pulse rapidly escalated for several hours following a week long binge of energy drinks. My grandmother meant the world to me and I often felt that she was the only person who understood me. We had deep political differences and still managed to live under the same roof. In my youth I was a committed atheist and anti-capitalist. She described herself as “so far right, almost a fascist.” Talk about polar opposites!
However, one must choose love when hate or antagonism is fruitless. We never met eye to eye, and in her final days she read Ann Coulter. I argued that all Fox News anchors were entertainers including Bill O”Reilly—and she reluctantly agreed but for different reasons. She saw O’Reilly’s own failings as not living to his anti-immigration stance whereas I found such beliefs to be ignorant and racist in general. Often complaining of my anti-Americanism because I do not believe in Exceptionalism, my grandmother incidentally helped to develop my opinions and ability to express them as well as a temperament that tolerates extreme differences of opinion. I cultivated this as a response to my inabilities to convince her of anything, particularly on immigration.
Once we watched a news segment together about a Mexican who hitched trains illegally, killing Americans at his stops. She suggested “we”, meaning Americans, cannot allow immigrants into the United States because they “do this kind of thing.” Over the years, I have forgiven her the ignorance of which she sometimes admitted. Having been married to a Klansman in the old South, it is likely she developed this mindset from trauma. She was a gentle human being at heart.
She also raised me from my troubled background because my father could not afford it. I am told by my mother that her father and my grandmother exchanged heated words over the custody dispute. My grandfather exclaimed at her that taking a kid from his mother was immoral. My mother is a liberal atheist, and I believe this drew my grandmother’s disapproval. I have the court documents from the chancery court that state I would be raised in a “Christian environment” by my grandmother, to the “liking of the court.” My mother appeared for some of the case, but stop coming and her lawyer asked for recusal. He said he was not being paid by my mother. My mother, as a consequence of this dispute, became a paralegal. She used to send gifts of money until she moved to another job. Still living in Atlanta, I visited her at age 30 to learn about her. Her roommate was a Bostonian man who quickly took to disliking me, even though he found me on social media for her.
I lived with her for two weeks during Christmas and my birthday. Her son, my half brother Brandon, paid my ticket home by bus. It was a snowy season and the ground was whitened by the fallen snow. We drove from Christmas vacation in the Smokey Mountains to Atlanta for the meeting. My cousin drove me to an Atlanta bookstore. I bought a Leonard Cohen cd and a book by Rilke. My mother approached tears in eyes, her face mildly surprised.
During the visit, she cut my hair at her stylist school. I met her friend, a gay man, and she introduced me as “gay friendly.” Together, we attended a Mannheim Steamroller concert where my brother was the band’s merchandise manager. He is an apparently amicable person and friends with Ziggy Marley. He also worked on a spoken word cd with Coleman Barks through a band he knew at the time. He introduced us to Mannheim Steamroller. We had backstage passes. I was out of place in my own skin because I was used to being thinner. My medications and overeating led to severe weight gain. I was allowed at a food bar backstage. I later wrote a story published by Adelaide Literary Journal that used these experiences to describe a concert that turns violent.
My brother and I smoked marijuana together although I no longer smoke. We went to a Dali exhibit where I saw my favorite Dali masterpiece “Christ of St. John of the Cross” in person. I also saw a magazine Dali signed encased in glass. After seeing an advertisement for an exhibit of skinless muscle, I joked about how it would be “gross” to see it. I believe my brother found the joke narrow-minded.
We discussed politics and religion, agreeing that conservative religious belief is limited. Years later I posted an Easter gift from my aunt, a hand-carved wooden Cross, and my mother laugh-emojied the post. She rarely interacts on social media with me, and even turned down visiting when I was going to be in Atlanta waiting for a flight out.
She doesn’t seem to want a relationship with me. At one juncture, I offered to help with her food bill when her groceries were stolen. She said it was “sweet” but turned it down.
Her friend Talisa once told me that my maternal grandmother had a dream before she was killed by a drunk driver. It was of a dark figure who took me from her arms, and left her powerless to fight. Two weeks later, she was killed. My mother wrote about this event in a letter to a bestselling author. The letter was published in a collection called Letters from Motherless Daughters. She details experiences of motherlessness, taking responsibility for many of them. Talisa had a falling out with her over politics. Talisa used to walk with my mom when I was still in a baby carriage. She says my mother will not admit she is responsible for most of her problems.
Bio of the Writer:
Dustin Pickering is founder of Transcendent Zero Press. He has contributed writing to Huffington Post, Café Dissensus Everyday, The Statesman (India), Journal of Liberty and International Affairs, The Colorado Review, World Literature Today, Asymptote Journal, and several other publications. He was given the honor Knight of World Peace by the World Institute for Peace in 2022. He hosts the popular interview series World Inkers Network on YouTube. He is author of the poetry collections Salt and Sorrow, Knows No End, The Alderman, Only and Again, The Nothing Epistle, The Stone and the Square, and several others, as well as the novella Be Not Afraid of What You May Find. His most recent poetry collection Crime of the Extraordinary resonates with themes of guilt culled from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.
Himalaya Diary urges the readers to check out the new book of poems titled “CRIME OF THE EXTRA-ORDINARY” by Dustin Pickering. Here is the amazon India link: amazon.in/dp/8119858956