I wonder if my grandfather ever tires of people whispering around him. If their hushed tones grate on his deafened ears, or if he has enjoyed living his life in silence. He must know by now, after all these years, that what is said under one’s breath is likely something he would not want to hear anyway. Maybe, in that sense, our whispers protect him. I think it is more likely, however, that they are a tool my family and I have always used to protect ourselves from his steadfast beliefs. If we say something quietly the first time, we can assess how it sounded out loud and then make our best guess as to whether his ears would have interpreted our sentences differently. We can rethink, rephrase, and then speak up, ready for a response this time. Ready for a conversation that won’t end in questioning. In anger.
Even when my grandfather wasn’t yet elderly and small, his hearing hadn’t deteriorated, and he wore clothes apart from the same shabby sweater and dress pants I now see him in almost every day, pieces of my life had always been shushed in his presence. I grew up stepping on thousands of eggshells trying to be myself around him, trying to say only the right things and withhold all the wrong information, always afraid that my words would betray me. Eventually, I became taciturn. I figured out that it’s much easier to sit in comfortable silence with my Grampa than to constantly worry about saying something incriminating in front of him. But it’s for this reason, obligatory quiet, that I don’t think he has ever had any idea who I really am.
…
I was six years old the first time I learned to shut my mouth in front of my grandfather. It was the week before Easter, and I was at my grandparents’ house, painting eggs. I’d given up apple juice for Lent because I’d never liked it in the first place, and also because I was too young to comprehend what the season actually signified. I was barely conscious of anything at that age, let alone the amorphous concept of religion. I went to Sunday School. My family attended church every so often, particularly when Mimi and Grampa were around. But it wasn’t until I accidentally got my mom in trouble by uttering a single sentence that I realized just how much religion could dominate a person’s life. If only I’d known, then, just how much it would end up dominating my relationship with my grandfather.
“How do your parents usually celebrate Easter with you kids?” Mimi asked, handing me a hard-boiled egg.
I tried to think back to last year. I could recall the elusive “Easter Bunny” visiting our house, leaving baskets of treats and goodies in his wake. But mostly, my brain distracted me, overflowing with prospective colors and patterns I might use to paint my egg. I didn’t understand that this question was a test. And I certainly didn’t think to inform my grandparents that my family had indeed gone to Easter Mass and received Communion last year, just as we did every year. Just as we planned to do again in a few days. To me, things like church and God and faith were faraway notions. I was a kid. The only things I knew how to worship were books and Disney channel original movies.
“I don’t really think we do anything,” I ended up saying. “We just get candy and stuff.” And then my small hands clutched a paintbrush at last, and I became lost in creation, conversation forgotten, its significance ignored. I failed to notice the way Mimi’s eyes cut to Grampa’s in alarm. I failed to recognize what the consequences of my statement might be, not just for me, but for my mother, who’d been raised under the most pious of roofs. The very roof enclosing my Easter egg and I at that very moment.
She came to me, days later, angry. “Why would you tell Mimi and Grampa that we don’t celebrate Easter?” she asked, and the agitation in her voice confused me.
“I just couldn’t remember,” I said. “How do we celebrate it?”
My mother sighed, her gaze softening. “Being Catholic is something that’s very important to them, Kayleigh. They want it to be important to us, too. I know you might not understand what that means right now, but please don’t say anything to Mimi and Grampa in the future that might insinuate we aren’t properly celebrating Easter and Christmas, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, frowning. Something about it didn’t seem right to me, but I had no desire to linger over our conversation. After all, we did celebrate Easter and Christmas properly. And we were certainly a Catholic family; in fact, I was due to make my First Communion later that year. Nonetheless, some part of my spirituality had cracked open that day without me knowing it. The memory would keep coming back over the years, indicating something about my beliefs that I now knew my family might never be comfortable with.
…
Mimi died when I was nine, and afterwards, my grandfather started acting like God was the only thing he had left to live for. It was always awkward seeing him on a Sunday afternoon, because if you were still in your pajamas, there would be hell to pay.
“Skipped church again, did we?” he’d say to my parents, the disapproval in his voice imminent. Any time my brothers and I were left alone with Grampa, he grilled us about our beliefs, informed us of our divine duties, and quizzed us on general Catholic knowledge. Whenever he came over for dinner, my family made sure to say grace before eating, even though we rarely did so on any other day. We set routines into place that were meant to appease his displeasure and make him believe that we cared about God as much as he did. Still, sometimes, our behavior showed cause for alarm. Once, after overhearing a heated argument I’d had with my mother about a sweater I refused to wear, Grampa approached me in the hallway, sparks lighting his eyes.
“Don’t you know what the Fifth Commandment is, young lady?” he roared. At least, it sounded like roaring at the time. It sounded like God Himself had stepped into my home, intent on making me an obedient daughter.
“Um, don’t kill?” I asked, terrified, already knowing I was wrong.
“Honor your mother and father,” he hissed, and my heart dropped. Right. Immediately, I felt a terrible guilt creep up inside of me. I hadn’t meant to be disrespectful. I should’ve listened to my mother. But just as quickly as the guilt had risen, another thought suddenly materialized in the back of my mind: Could something as small as refusing to wear an uncomfortable sweater really be the thing that sends me to hell someday?
The idea didn’t make any sense to me whatsoever. And so, my belief system cracked further, harboring a question that could only grow in silence as countless more bewildering examples of Catholicism made themselves available to me over the years, until finally, mere months before I was due to celebrate my Confirmation, I realized that I didn’t believe in God at all.
But… Grampa. If he ever found out I was an atheist, would he still love me? Would he blame himself—or worse, my parents? His life had always followed a clear hierarchy; one he’d told me about before in very specific words: “My priorities in life are the five Fs: Faith, family, friends, food…and then, in dead last, fun.” My mother once said that she’d grown up knowing that God was the true love of his life. More than his wife, more than his children, my grandfather loved God, and everyone knew it. He knew it. He would have told you that a devout Catholic shouldn’t live any other way. I have never understood this, but I have also never been able to ask him about it. If I had, perhaps my relationship with faith would have turned out differently. And maybe my relationship with my grandfather would never have become so tainted.
…
I’m twenty years old now. My grandfather is ninety. A few months ago, he had a nervous breakdown for the first time in his life. He began slurring his words, stopped going on walks, and complained a lot more, which we didn’t think was possible. For the first time in my life, he looked old. People weren’t looking at him and saying, “Wow, he’s in such great shape!” But the biggest reason we had to worry came from a phone call with my aunt, during which he informed her: “I don’t even know if God exists anymore. Why would He make me live in a world like this?” Her first instinct was that he was having a stroke. If my grandfather was questioning his faith, that meant something must have been very wrong. As it turns out, though, the problem was more emotional than physical.
Eventually, his depression got better. My Grampa is old, yes, but he’s trying to live again. He finally conceded to my mother’s long-lived argument for him to purchase hearing aids. In theory, he should be able to hear us better now, but he never acts like he does. Maybe it’s his way of finally ignoring the things he doesn’t understand about us, or maybe we’ve simply gotten too good at whispering. Either way, the hearing aids seem to have made him happier. My mother encourages him to exercise, listen to music, and reach out to family more often. He still goes to church every week, even gets there thirty minutes early. I dropped him off when I was home last, and for once, I wasn’t asked about religion, nor was I confronted about not staying to attend the service with him. We sat in comfortable silence the whole drive, simply existing as the only two people in my family who have reconciled with the quiet. Truth be told, it might be the only thing we have in common.
The Tributary 