Something About Snakes

My two grandmothers were as different as night and day. One was a hugging, kissing, cookie-baking, game-playing, jolly German woman, as stereotypical a grandmother as any woman ever was… but a world away from me in a magical century-old house in western Pennsylvania. And the second—a relentlessly hardworking, scrubbed-down, no-time-for-nonsense country woman with a straw hat on her head and every inch of her body covered for fear of sun exposure, ticks… or worse.

I was practically grown before I had an actual paid babysitter. My very reluctant older brother watched over me, much to my trepidation and against my pleas with my mother to make other arrangements. Fortunately, those times were infrequent. I was more often carried off to stay with my grandparents, Lillie and Otis, in their little white-framed house in the sticks near Willis, Texas. My ever-quiet Grandfather Otis was kind and wise; my Grandmother Lillie seemed to be always cooking, cleaning, or harvesting something from their bountiful vegetable garden. Only occasionally would she allow herself the pleasure of a few minutes of gossip with one of her sisters on their party-line telephone.

“As a child, this thing about snakes hanging around worried me and made me wonder if by chance I did encounter a snake while blackberry picking with Lillie, would she expect me, her granddaughter, to kill her own snake? Surely not.”

She wasn’t hard or mean or unloving—she was busy. I knew without question that she loved me, even though hugs were hurried and kisses nonexistent. Even so, I don’t believe I ever heard her say, “I love you.” She was far more concerned with my level of cleanliness than with sharing any sort of frivolity or affection with her sixth grandchild. Bath time was torturous, as she was intent on scrubbing off every freckle I had (and being a redhead, I had plenty), believing them to be the dreaded ticks she constantly warned me about. There really were ticks, of course, every so often, which proved her point and drove home that incessant need to scour my body every time I frolicked through the woods.

The best times with Lillie involved our blackberry-picking jaunts, which took far less time to complete than they did to prepare for. Even in the midst of a blistering hot day, she would cover me in one of Otis’s long-sleeved shirts and a pair of trousers with the legs rolled up but tucked into knee-high socks. I had oversized gloves and a hat that blocked most of my vision. But I was protected, in her view, from just about everything that might attack me. And there we would go, traipsing down the dirt roads and through the scratchy vines, plucking off the ripened blackberries and dropping them in our buckets. Every so often she would yell out, “Watch out for snakes!”

I never saw a snake on those excursions, but I knew they were there… lurking, waiting, ready to pounce… because Lillie told me so. Back at the house, with the gigantic window air-conditioning unit on full blast, Lillie would make a blackberry cobbler in the middle of the afternoon. She would scoop out generous, steaming helpings into bowls and drop homemade vanilla ice cream on top. Otis and I would finish every bit of our treat, sitting silently side by side on the green vinyl couch in that pine-paneled living room.

Lillie was generous and giving, but she also believed that everyone had to take responsibility for their own lives. In response to a story about a family member, neighbor, or fellow parishioner having a particularly rough time, she’d sometimes say, “Everybody has to kill his own snakes.” There we were again with the snakes. Apparently, they lurked in people’s lives as well as the tangled blackberry vines. As a child, this thing about snakes hanging around worried me and made me wonder if by chance I did encounter a snake while blackberry picking with Lillie, would she expect me, her granddaughter, to kill her own snake? Surely not.

Through the years this warning and wisdom about snakes and snake-killing became far more than a legend or an amusing story in the family. It became part of who we are, for those of us who knew and loved Lillie. For all of her quirky, germaphobic, serious ways, she loved us and cared for us and taught us things we may not have understood at the time. But we learned our lessons well. I am still terrified of ticks and snakes.

It took me years to understand the true meaning of the snake-killing analogy. It was not a hardened stance against people who have unexpected troubles and challenges in their lives, because everyone does from time to time, and everyone deserves a bit of charity, prayer, and compassion. My grandmother’s snakes were the self-imposed problems—bad decisions or behaviors—things we do but should not, that wreak havoc on our lives. Each of us must ferret out our own snakes—our own special demons—and hack them to pieces. No one else can do that for us.

For many years, my brother and I have ended our phone chats with Lillie’s admonishment to “Watch out for snakes.” Such sendoff messages are meant to provide a cover or shield against any unforeseen calamity, because Lillie taught us that snakes can lurk in the most unexpected places, waiting to pounce. For my big brother, it became his own way to impart not only his concern for my safety—as I traveled about the world for business—but to show his affection for his little sister. It became our own special magic dust to keep predators and monsters at bay.

It is a way of saying “Be careful.” “Be safe.” And it is also a way of saying “I love you.” Just as Lillie had done all those years ago in her high-pitched voice across the twisted-up blackberry vines, on those eternally dusty dirt roads, to her little redheaded granddaughter.