When I began a writing project exploring my grandfather's decades-long brush with death, I'm pretty sure my first thought was, "This should be fun!" After all, who doesn't like a bit of family gossip? The story of my Pop-pop's triumph over Hodgkin's lymphoma has been part of Eisenbise family lore for as long as I can remember. I would hear snippets of the tale here and there from my mother and aunt: how Hodgkin's was considered incurable in the 1950s, how Pop-pop was unaware of his prognosis for nearly two decades, how my Nana knew he had only months to live and was instructed to keep it hush-hush. Growing up, it was just a thing that had happened a million years ago, a story that didn't really matter because hey, my grandfather was alive and well now, right?

 

Recently, though, the details of that piece of family history have begun to eat away at me. I suddenly had a million questions, ones my mother couldn't answer. What was it like to inexplicably recover from a deadly disease?  How did it feel to be told that your entire married life was built on one big lie? How did it feel to keep something so terrifying from the person you loved most, to be afraid that your words would kill the love of your life? This past summer, I asked these questions (and many more) to the one person with all the answers: my grandmother, my Nana. She agreed to an interview, and through her matter-of-fact account, I felt the heartache she experienced in 1959 and the pressure placed upon her to this day. 

 

I knew that this was a feeling I wanted to dig into during my Minor in Writing gateway project. Through scientific research and artistic exploration and many, many books about feminist theory, I exhausted the angles from which to explore my grandmother's account. All of this culminated into my final project, an artist writing inspired by a tapestry I created to further investigate the pressure and grief my Nana felt in her early married life. Equal parts narrative, historical discussion, and aesthetic analysis, the writing contextualizes my fiber arts piece within the ancient tradition of "women's work" while telling the story I have been transforming all semester through writing. 

 

Through all of my writing and reading and weaving and thinking this semester, I've realized something: this is the life of a woman. Not just the life of a 1950s housewife or a grieving partner, an enthusiastic hostess or a mild-mannered perfectionist. We live in a society that conditions women to protect their loved ones at any cost, to make others comfortable despite the personal expense, to give and give and give with no expectation of getting anything in return. By focusing on my grandmother's struggles, I have come to learn more about my own tendency to smother and protect, to give and give and give.

 

I've happily given four months of my life to my grandmother's memories and my grandfather's story. In return, I have received a new perspective on love and devotion, and a new understanding of myself as a daughter, granddaughter, and woman. And, finally, I have found my voice as a writer: humorous, empathetic, and, above all else, honest. My Nana has always said, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Hopefully she'll forgive me just this once. 

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My grandfather wasn't supposed to live to see 1961. Instead of dying within eighteen months of his diagnosis, he remained alive and active for fifty-nine more years. He lived to have two daughters and three granddaughters, to get a Master's Degree in Mathematics, to wear bright green leisure suits and argyle sweaters and fanny packs. As for my Nana, she lived to see him live, always worried it would all go downhill, always grateful when it didn't. My Pop-pop passed away in the early morning hours of November 28th, 2018, just as I was finishing this writing portfolio, just one day before my Nana's birthday.