THE SALAMI SANDWICH

When I was a little girl, one of the things that symbolized joy was the salami sandwich my grandmother would make me when I came to visit. I barely had food in my own home and if I did, it wasn’t anything as fancy as salami. I visited my grandmother often, especially in the summers. She was the kindest woman I have ever encountered. Everyone loved her. She was such a people person. My grandmother never learned to drive so she walked most places. Everyone at the bank knew and loved her, everyone at the beauty shop knew and loved her. Once I got older and had children, she couldn’t wait for the opportunity to brag about her great grandchildren.

When I was little, I remember wondering how it was that she was so gentle, and kind and my mother was so violent. I couldn’t understand how my grandmother could be such an outgoing people person and my mother literally hated everyone. To this day, my mother is a racist against everyone. She is seriously homophobic which is ironic since two of her granddaughters and me are bisexual. She hates other races and my son’s girlfriend of four years is Arabic. I raised my children to love all just like my grandmother did. I taught them to look at someone’s heart and how they treated others. That was all that mattered. not skin tone, religion, sexual preference.

I do definitely have some resentment towards my grandmother for not protecting me. She knew and acknowledged that my mother was an angry abusive woman, but she did nothing to help me. As I stated in a previous story, she acknowledged that my uncle was sexually abusing me but couldn’t do more than acknowledge it. My grandmother always seemed frail to me and in many ways like she had just kind of gave up on life. I’m sure she suffered from depression and back then people just ignored mental health. Although I often feel angry at her for her lack of protection, I love her for the salami sandwich. It was all that that sandwich symbolized. I can still picture sitting in her kitchen at the round table in front of the big kitchen window while she made my sandwich. She always remembered my mustard, because she knew me. Whenever I was at my grandmothers, I was safe from the beatings.

I spent a lot of my summers with my grandmother because my best friend lived next door. I would eat lunch with my grandmother, and we would talk but I would spend the day playing with my friend and not worry about what my mom would do. Summers were not half bad for me because of this. Those days were a reprieve from the abuse, and I felt like I could breathe.