One picture sits on my desk, my 24-year-old grandmother Edyth standing next to the farmhouse holding my infant mother Katheryn in her arms. We can see the side of the house, a shade tree, and in the background, a steam tractor. I like Edyth’s no-nonsense expression.

This picture sits on my desk because I think I would have liked my grandmother and it reminds me I still need to learn how to forgive my grandfather and my step-grandmother for never mentioning Edyth, much less telling me she was my real grandmother.

I grew up believing Edyth’s sister Laura was my grandmother. Laura was a wonderful person. When my grandfather’s eyesight began to fail, he taught Laura how to shoot the pesky squirrels in the backyard and I taught her how to drive.  She aced her driving test and wiped out a lot of squirrels until the cops showed up and asked why she was firing a .38 in the yard.

Edyth was shrouded in mystery, Laura’s sister who died of typhoid from the family well in 1914. My grandfather married Laura and this was something they kept quiet about because marrying your deceased wife’s sister didn’t look good. However, they kept it so quiet that their grandsons, my two brothers and I, were never told until after Joe and Laura died.

This lie kept Edyth and all the stories and memories of Edyth out of our consciousness because she was not mentioned in family yarns and memories. I think my brothers and I could have handled the truth about Laura and Edyth when we were in high school if not sooner. My parents respected my grandparents’ wishes to keep quiet about it. I wouldn’t have.

So it is that I still haven’t forgiven my grandfather and step-grandmother or my parents for covering up just who Edyth was. I know I should. The photo on my desk reminds me that I should. So far, I can’t because it made me feel discounted when I finally learned the truth, i.e., that  I couldn’t be trusted to know my real grandmother’s name.

Many miles and many years after Edyth died in 1914 in Illinois and Joe married her sister, Laura, there was no longer a reason to keep that part of our family’s history secret. So it is that the photo on my desk helps me understand who I am, who my mother was, and who my grandmother was. I have yet to forgive those who kept me from knowing Edyth–sad to say.

–Malcolm