When we were kids, my brother and I often ate at our maternal Grandmother’s house. We called her Gammie. She was a deeply religious, Gone-With-the-Wind-worpshipping, conservative Republican, and an excellent caregiver. Our dad was dead, and our single mother, Mary, was often otherwise engaged, chasing dreams, and working to make Atlanta the bastion of progressivism it is today. Mom depended on Gammie to help raise us. Food was a big part of that, countless meals on TV trays, watching variety shows and Norman Lear sitcoms in Gammie’s den.
Our grandmother would stand at the door, smiling as we munched away.
“I just love watching y’all eat!” she’d say, sometimes teary. We thought this was crazy, but also normal.
Our mother and Gammie’s relationship was complicated. Mom was a self-described hippie, in her thirty-something prime, and Gammie believed everything Nixon said about hippies, Vietnam, drugs, etc. The women were outwardly critical of one another, often in front of my brother and me. I did not quite understand the ever-present tension vibrating between them. I am now deeply familiar with that dance.
Mom routinely called out Gammie’s racism, sexism, small-mindedness. And even as Gammie took us in with smiles and hugs, she nevertheless sniped about our clothes, the cupboards in our house, Mom staying over at her boyfriend’s, our hair. Gammie’s excellent caregiving was not free.
Gammie especially hated when we allowed our beloved and magnificent mutt, Pee-Wee, to lick the entirety of our faces, kissing us with dog abandon. The feel of that dog’s tongue on my lips, cheeks, and nose, is with me still.
“You ought not let him do that!” Gammie said. “He’s got FECES in his mouth!”
We did not know what feces was. We were 9 and 10 years old. But we loved the word. FECES.
“He licks his bottom!” Gammie said. “He’s got FECES in his mouth! Mary, I can’t believe you let him do that!” (Pee-Wee was female, but Gammie perpetually mis-gendered her.)
Mom gritted her teeth and explained FECES to us. It is, essentially, dog poop. (We squealed.) She also noted that dogs’ mouths are cleaner than human mouths, due to bacteria-killing, super-powered canine saliva.
“You’re more likely to get an infection from a human bite than a dog bite,” she said.
Gammie harumphed at that, and made one of her indignant exits.
Subsequently, my brother and I would routinely point at random things and exclaim FECES! We laughed ‘til we cried. Pee-Wee especially loved to lick our faces then.
Thanksgiving approached. As was my family’s custom, my aunt Josie – one of my mom’s big sisters – invited the whole family – about 15 or so – to her house in the Georgia countryside for a potluck dinner. Josie cooked the turkey and fixings. Gammie, then in her 70s, brought a dessert she called TRIFLE, plus cornbread and overcooked, over-salted, delicious string beans.
Mom was not known for a specific dish. She was not known as much of a cook. But she’d woken up uncharacteristically early on Thanksgiving Day. To my brother’s and my confusion, she spent most of the morning in the kitchen. In addition to the usual coffee and cigarettes smell, the exotic scent of baking wafted through our home.
When it was time to go, Mom carried a covered dish to the VW Bug and placed it on the floorboards of the passenger seat. We clambered into the back, clueless. Off to Aunt Josie’s we sped. We were the last to arrive. Josie’s many dogs surrounded the car in the rutted driveway. Mom fearlessly walked through the swarm of canines and strode into the house, waving that covered dish around.
When she had everyone’s attention, Mom whisked away the dishtowel to reveal a perfect pumpkin pie. Emblazoned on the surface, in crispy dough letters, was the word FECES.
“Look Mother,” my mom said with a big grin, “I MADE A FECES PIE.”
We held our breath and watched Gammie’s face. What was that expression? Hostility, surprise, disgust? And… pride? Yes. All of the above emotions played across my grandmother’s face until finally she threw her head back and cackled.
Everyone joined in, laughing in a rare moment of complete family harmony.
The FECES PIE was delicious. Indeed, my mother could cook. She just needed some motivation, a gauntlet thrown. In the precious few years remaining of family togetherness – before I left home, the cousins grew apart, and illness and death encroached – the FECES PIE became a much-anticipated family tradition, the stuff of legend.
The FECES PIE is eaten. Long live the FECES PIE.