The Stories She Told
Mioko was the only person I knew who owned an actual pitchfork. She used it to spread hay around what we called the family farm, though to others it was just a dense and haphazard vegetable garden spanning the small side lawn of her three-bedroom bungalow. Her house sat in a cul-de-sac and despite the HOA having opinions about the color of her vinyl siding, somehow they let the garden slide. It’s possible they just loved the free supply of summer squash and cucumbers.
One morning, a week’s worth of rain finally subsided and Mioko got back to forking around. A wall of hay bales nearly as tall as her 5’1” frame was calling her name. In her wide-brimmed hat and floral button-up, Mioko met the morning dew as she was known to do. The sun was directly overhead by the time she reached the bottom bales, still soaked from the rain. As she began spreading the last of the hay, Mioko uncovered a swarming nest of baby snakes that looked, as she described it, like a bowl of moving noodles. It took several seconds before she noticed the mother snake in a strike-ready position. A copperhead—she recognized it immediately from past run-ins with her Jack Russells. Barely moving, she reached for the spade leaning against the house and in one swift movement, wham! She decapitated the mother.
If you think the story ends there, it does not. She then went to her garage, pulled out a gas can used for her lawnmower, and doused the snake nest in gasoline before setting it on fire! This last part was told with a little chuckle and relief that it didn’t catch the house—steps away—on fire…
This story was recounted on a random Tuesday phone call with my grandma. Imagine me on the other line, interrupting with gasps as the story escalated again and again. At first I was annoyed with her for doing such strenuous manual labor—she was in cancer treatment at the time! But I ended up in total awe of this quick-thinking, ninja-like elderly woman who obviously had seen some shit and wasn’t one to be messed with.
She had dozens of stories like this. The day she accidentally aided in a kidnapping. The time she saved someone’s job over a banana split. The torrid affair between her boss and (unbeknownst to her) future husband. She'd recount them with the same verve she used to highlight the deals she got at Walmart that week.
My grandmother had a way of storytelling that transported you into her shoes. Despite being retired and living a quiet life in the suburban Piedmont of North Carolina, she always had a tale to tell. Stories that, by contrast, made my 20s and 30s living in NYC seem wholesome and, I’ll say it—boring.
I never got the sense that her intent was to entertain. It just seemed that life, filtered through her eyes, was jubilant. The day-to-day mundanities held humor and meaning for her. Maybe that’s the perspective you gain after decades of hardship. By the time you reach eighty and have experienced world wars, loss of epic proportions, and the relentlessness of abject poverty, a poisonous snake and a near-house fire are child’s play.
What her gift for storytelling reminds me is that we all have a unique voice. It's not about saying something no one's ever said—it's about saying it the way only you can. When we create, it is easy to feel as though something new needs to be said with each thing that we produce. But that is not the case. Stay true to your voice, and you inherently create something of value. Mioko proved that with every phone call.
