My Grandmother Essay -- Creative Writing Personal Narrative Essays

My Grandmother My grandma has a bobcat. It lives on her roof. She’s called the police twice; they told her that bobcats don’t live in her climate. I imagine the police at the station rolling their eyes, groaning to their colleagues that Gloria from Cherrywood Lane is calling again. Or maybe they put her on speakerphone so everyone can laugh. So Grandmother called my mom to say that a bobcat lives on her roof. My mother asked her â€Å"Do you really think it’s a bobcat?† â€Å"No† my grandmother said, â€Å"It might be a lynx.† My grandmother is a four-foot tall, three-foot wide Jewish woman with long white hair. She wears flea market jewelry to the point of capacity. Her arms are several pounds heavier than need be because of the twenty or so gold bracelets she wears around her wrist. I live in awe of the fact that her body has not separated from her head due to the gigantic golden bust of a sphinx she wears around her neck. She smokes Moore cigarettes, lighting one off of another. My grandmother is strange. She’s what prudent people call a â€Å"character† and blunt people call a â€Å"nut job†. For one thing, her house is filled with stuffed animals. I don’t mean that she has a lot of stuffed animals. I mean that her house is full of stuffed animals the way that a body is full of organs. There are no places to sit. There are no surfaces on which to eat. She names them, she dresses them - her house is FULL of stuffed animals. My mom and I used to eat there every other Sunday. In addition to the animals, my grandma collects cuckoo clocks. There are several in each room but none accurately tell the time. We would shout to her over the constant and cacophonous chiming and gonging. Our voices had to travel not just ... ...onder, though, about the breakdown of our unit. Is it better for my mother to entertain my grandmother’s stories purely out of a sense of duty? Or is it okay to write someone off, even a family member, who doesn’t contribute happiness to your life? Do you have to love someone because they gave birth to you? After all, my grandmother has certainly caused my mom a great deal of heartache. I don’t know the answer. In light of my grandmother’s craziness I can only be thankful for my mother. Were she to imagine the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man on her roof I would be on the next plane home. I’d build a proton pack out of cardboard and sit with her and comfort her until he went away. I’d dine with her in the living room, eating with my back turned to her so she’d still be comfortable. I’d help her name her stuffed animals and wind her clocks so they all chimed at once.