Bubble an' Squeak

Tell all the truth but tell it slant — (1263) Tell all the truth but tell it slant — Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind — By Emily Dickinson I told the truth, but I told it  slant . Raised always to be a good girl, go to Church, take the Sacraments, be a good student, work hard, study hard, pray hard. The reward for all of this was a completely miserable existence. As the years dragged on, the truth was so bleak, I told it, just slant.  If I could make my story happy, it would be happy. Writers say the story is all in the way you frame it. Maybe if I slanted the truth just enough, twisted it in the light like a prism - just the right way, the truth would be a rainbow emerging from storm clouds. Shattering the darkness. If I laughed a little, and twisted it just a tad, and then a tad more, the clouds appeared to blow ...

 I have always wondered why my grandmother died. She was dead long before I was born; my dad was just two years old. His father, his brother and his sister were left on the farm in Northern Maine to fend for themselves. Dad tells me stories of sitting on the floor of the tractor with his brother. Dad was the brake, Clayton was the gas. Cindy was up top steering the tractor across the fields to help their dad, shouting commands at her two younger brothers. There are whispers in the family about her death: A hysterectomy gone wrong? Something about her lady parts? Had she lost another baby? These mysteries are bound in the recesses of time, lost to those of us who stand before her black and white photo and wonder, who she was, and why she left so early. It seems the women in my family have had hard luck with early deaths, and desperate lives. My aunt Cindy went on to see her father remarry and bring three more children into the family. My Grandmere loved them and raised them all - to...