I picture my
grandfather sitting at the sturdy, wooden table of my grandparents’
kitchen piling salsa picante onto whatever he was eating and
worrying about the past, the present, and the unforeseeable. If you
couldn’t tell he was a ball of nerves from the way he would rub his
eyebrows, he would be happy to let you know what was ailing him
today, whether it be the Dodgers or the weather or the most recent
trip to the doctor’s office with my great aunt Caro.
“Can you believe
she said ‘fuck you’ to the nurse?” he exclaimed to my
grandmother who cooked and rolled her eyes, almost laughing from his
exasperation.
“That doctor is a
cabrón!
And a racist! They treat me bad there because I’m a
Mexican,” said my fair-skinned and light-eyed aunt who lifted her
hands to further her point.
My grandmother
always told me that my grandfather’s life changed the day that I
was born and that she fell in love with him again after almost 35
years of marriage. It is true that his grandchildren were the apples
of his eye and he would show his love for us by worrying about us
incessantly at every moment of every day.
Whether it was big
dogs, the beach, playground equipment, or sub-70 degree temperatures,
everything was out to get us.
“Here comes old
‘No-jacket Matthew’ they call him” he would always say
as I would enter their house regardless of the month. Unless it was
the dead of summer, I was always exposing myself to the perils of the
arctic Southern California climate.
“Mijo, if
you love me, just put on a jacket before you walk in our house,” my
grandmother would tell me. “I don’t care if you weren’t wearing
it all day, just put it on or I will hear about it all week,” and
we would chuckle as she did impressions of him in Spanglish.
I remember when my
grandpa got sick and I would go over during the summer to help take
care of him and my grandma would look at me over the breakfast table
with tired eyes and say: “You are going to look just like your
grandfather one day, baby.”
Years after he
passed away, I would stare up at a picture of him that I tacked to
the bulletin board in my room and images of him would flash through
my head as my heart beat rapidly, unable to sleep.
Sometimes I wake up
in the middle of the night because I've dreamed that I am in a room
filled with snakes and there is no way out. Even though it is a
recurring dream, I always leap out of bed onto the floor and rip the
sheets off the mattress, examining for anything that moves. Before I
can convince myself to give getting back into bed a try, I usually
pace the house checking locks on windows and doors and unplugging
lamps so the house doesn't burn down; this was always a legitimate
fear of my grandfather's ever since he saw that 60 minutes special.
Sometimes I think
that I am just crazy. It doesn't take much to put me over the edge,
usually; especially an illness. There's a certain irony in diagnosing
yourself a hypochondriac, which is just one of the decisions I made
one night as I shook in terror over two swollen lymph nodes in my
groin. I was having pain urinating and doctor's appointment for the
next day to do some tests.
Ever since the moment I came out to my
parents, I was always worried that being gay had predestined me for
something awful. Against all the reason in the world, I nearly cried
three months earlier as the nurse pricked my finger to draw blood for
an HIV test at a routine physical. I had now convinced myself that
the test was a false negative and tomorrow I was going to the
doctor's to receive my true fate. At this point, I had the theme
ingrained in my mind and I tossed my phone across my bed in the
latest heated exchange with my boyfriend of nearly a year about
coming out to his parents before I traveled across the globe to meet
them for the first time. But with my impending diagnosis on the mind,
would any of it matter anymore? I pulled the blankets over my face to
keep everything out and I examined the crisscross pattern until I
dizzied myself to sleep.
Anxiety doesn't
sound like a legitimate illness and certainly not something that can
be inherited. Yet the next morning as I headed out the door for the
appointment, I glanced back and watched as my mom popped a Zoloft
into her mouth and washed it down with freshly-brewed coffee. I took
a step and closed the door slowly, pausing and staring at my car.
I guess I remember
putting the keys into the ignition and backing out of the driveway,
but it was in the gas station parking lot on the corner of Grand and
Schaffer that I regained consciousness. I was shaking and sobbing
hysterically on the curb next to my car and the hum of my
still-running engine made me dizzy. The word “Dad” illuminated
the screen of my phone which I was holding in my right hand and his
voice called out to me from the speaker. I struggled to regain my
breath and managed to spatter out a weak: “I’m okay.”
It is hard to
describe an anxiety attack to someone who has never had one before,
but I know when I pulled out of the driveway that morning I never saw
it coming. The thing about anxiety attacks is that I never do see
them coming, but that morning it all became too much for me. Caught
inside my own head as I drove towards the appointment, I remember
beginning to shake violently until I gasped for air and my foot
rattled on the brakes. I can hear the honking of car horns behind me
as I tell myself to accelerate but my foot stays still. By the time
I turned into the parking lot, I had stopped controlling my own body
and I had let my fears take the wheel. Apparently, fear is not a good
driver because after gaining control of my breath I was spilled out
on the sidewalk and my car was parked across three parking spaces at
the back of the station mini-mart.
“Hon?! Are you
there, hon?!” said my dad and I stood up, answered, and got back
into the car, still sobbing. Slowly, I switched the car into drive,
turned the air conditioner on high, and made a right onto the busy
street.
My life-threatening
illness turned out to be a common urinary tract infection, but it
occurred to me that I had something much more serious wrong with me.
My mind. I left the office with a prescription for a three-day course
of antibiotics and a referral for anxiety counseling.
I used to blame my
fears on things that happened to me in the past—my parents' long
and bitter divorce or maybe that time I got chased by that man with a
gun in that movie theater. Maybe none of that is out of the realm of
possibility. But when I look in the mirror, I am beginning to see
more of my grandfather in me every day—in the ways that I worry
about the past that I cannot change and the future that has not yet
happened. I have come to the realization that this maniac worrying
may be due less to the things that have happened to me and more to
who am deep down at the core. When it comes to my grandpa and me, it
is becoming apparent that I have inherited more than his olive skin
and his lazy eyes.
*Intended Publication: "Lives" section of the New York Times Magazine
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