That time I made the Red Lobster crew cry
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That time I made the Red Lobster crew cry
Why I grew to hate school graduations
Writer’s note: This was briefly discussed in this “Toastmasters” blog, but here is the extended story. This post was originally published on August 6, 2021 for a Medium writing competition.
Cheddar bay biscuits are delicious. They’re not good enough to cry over though. Still, there I was, holding back tears that finally boiled over and resulted in 14 other people crying, plus the Red Lobster staff who happened to glance over at our table. If I was going to cry like this, I expected it to be in the privacy of my one-bedroom, off-campus apartment before they got there. But I sat at that table looking at all these people who made the road trip to see me from different states, and I just couldn’t be cool about it anymore.
Having several cars’ worth of people come out to celebrate the trial I went through to graduate in the first place — academic probation included and Cum Laude ribbons draped around my neck — was worth feeling proud of myself. But I wasn’t crying because of that. I was crying out of relief at the two people who were at the restaurant table and thinking of the two people who were not.
I’ve been sad on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday since 1995. I’m a loner by nature and am perfectly comfortable with my own company. For that reason, I can count on one hand the number of times I would ever consider myself “lonely.” It’s just not a natural emotion for me, and I never really understood those who were. But the first time I felt hollow inside was when I got a call from my mother, letting me know that my maternal grandmother (her mother) passed away. I spent the night at a friend’s house that weekend and was having a blast — until I got the news.
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My 13-year-old brain just couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that I would not sit in the kitchen of the woman who made the best homemade pancakes and bacon, a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, and chocolate mousse pie from scratch. She is the reason I never go a day without lighting candles. Although I was not and still am not a churchgoer, I loved the idea that when I walked into her baptist church lobby that she’d grin at me, say “Hello dah’ling” in a dragged-out impersonation of bourgeoisie women, wait for me to say it back and then stick a pin on my dress.
My “dah’ling” was the first time I experienced death, and I had no clue what to do with this emotion. My friend and her mother looked at me, waiting on a reaction. I neither cried nor frowned. I just sat in a chair in a daze, insisting that they not take me home. I didn’t want to be around my mother. I could hear the heartbreak in her voice, which made me even more clueless as to what to do. I was told that my godmother and cousin came over to our home to clean and help her with funeral arrangements. Even when I returned home, I still had that same empty feel and hid out in my bedroom in a daze.
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The first time I experienced a firm emotion other than loneliness was getting in the car after my grandmother’s wake with my mother and one of her friends. Her friend Lisa sang along to Brownstone’s “If You Love Me,” and I decided I despised that song. I would never be able to disconnect it from seeing my “dah’ling” grandmother in a casket. To this day, I still ask anyone to change the radio station if it comes on an R&B oldies station and am unsure if that’s the right song I just linked. I’m not willing to fact-check it.
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Then, in January of 1999, my paternal grandmother died months before my high school graduation. I wasn’t as close to my paternal grandmother as I was to my maternal grandmother, but this was still a punch in the stomach. When you saw my grandfather (who I was connected to by the hip), you saw my grandmother. So the idea of him being without her was just not something I could comprehend. She was the woman who was adamant that my hair always look nice (taking me to the beauty salon every two weeks from pre-school up until about eighth grade) and who made the kind of macaroni and cheese that everyone talked about at her repass. My gawd, I’ve never had better macaroni and cheese, and I’m not even big on pasta.
So as much as I was happy to get my bachelor’s degree, I kept thinking of my 91-year-old great great aunt and my almost-80-year-old grandfather. It’s not as if people of a certain of age are the only ones who can pass away, but I was noticing a pattern. On New Year’s Day, I was nervous. And I knew I’d stay nervous throughout all of January. Then February came. March. April. And I was getting closer to May 10, 2003 without any bad news. I still gulped whenever my phone rang from my non-college crew. My childhood best friend, who was my age, had already been killed while I was away at school.
Then came graduation weekend. When the cars pulled up and everyone got out, scoping out Jefferson City and my apartment, my eyes were looking for two people in particular. I locked eyes with my grandfather, and he put me in a bear hug like he was the one who was nervous. (My great great aunt went to the hotel instead to nap.)
By the time my college graduation was over, we were looking for some place close in this small town to eat. All 15 of us sat down at Red Lobster and gobbled down our food. I was totally fine the entire time. And then something came over me by the time I finished my main dish. I looked around at this table full of living, breathing people just eating and laughing. My shoulders started trembling. My mother looked over at me, and her eyes immediately welled up with tears. She is a crier anyway and didn’t even know why I was getting ready to cry. I’m sure she thought they were happy tears though.
At first everyone was kinda startled because I’m not really one to cry at anything but funerals, so they didn’t understand what was going on. And I couldn’t get the words to come out because I couldn’t stop crying long enough to talk. In my great great aunt’s usual way, she started cracking jokes and going, “Whatchu cryin’ about, girl?” (When I wasn’t “girl,” this woman — of Creole descent and born and raised in Louisiana before coming to Chicago — would call me her “little chocolate cake.”) She tried to make me laugh, but I still just couldn’t get it together. Then I realized other people started crying, and they didn’t know why they were crying either. It was like a Domino effect.
Eventually I did go around the table and thank everyone for coming, personalizing my speech for what made each of the 14 people special to me. My nephews, who were only one and three at the time, smiled bashfully. I got to the end of my speech, looked up, and I saw waitresses crying while watching us. They came over to tell us they needed the table if our party was done, but I guess one of them heard some of my speech and her eyes were red. I laughed when she turned to blow her nose, then walked over to hug her.
As much as I wish my grandmothers could’ve been there, too, I realized something about death. I spent so much time worried about who else would die in January and forgot to pay attention to all of those who were living the rest of the years.
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