I can’t remember the first time my dad suggested I should write the history of his family. That is, the history of my family, if I could learn to accept it. He was enamoured of the Robinsons, our ancestral Scottish clan which shone bright in his mind in the way that only legends can. I regret to say that I didn’t read the ancient tome he held out to me each time it struck his fancy. Allegedly, it contained unparalleled accounts of the great men and women who came before me. It shared a bookcase with titles like Yoga for a Restful Mind and Astrology Today with boisterous, sensuous covers that betrayed my grandmother’s 1970s flirtation with the new age. I didn’t make my way to our west coast homeland until the turn of the century, at which point she had found other routes to a restful mind, namely the calming repetitions of HGTV. I do wish terribly that I could have known her during her yoga phase.

As my dad daydreamed about the timeless historical account neither my sister nor I would ever write (noting the fairly blank looks he was getting in response, he always suggested it to both of us), I was passively piecing together my paternal ancestry: my mysterious new birthright.

The extreme expense of cross-country travel had kept our family away from the hunters for all but a handful of events since we moved away from California in the 90s. They were a very small group compared to my mom’s family, which boasted literally dozens of smiling faces, soaring voices, and cracking laughs at every gathering. The hunters almost never gathered in their full strength, such as it was: two (grand)parents, three sons, three daughters-in-law, and six grandchildren. Four of the grandchildren were my siblings and me. It was clear to everyone that my dad had really splashed out in comparison to the elder hunter boys. despite their small ranks, they were not at all close, according to my definitions of familial closeness. I continued to hold them apart as a “they” even as we made california our home again, after more than a decade away.

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During our brief visits over the course of my childhood, Grandma wished a paradox of appetite upon me, and it was one of the most lasting impressions she made. She was a very good cook, specializing in a roast dinner that, barring the inevitably overcooked vegetables, could rival anything you’ve ever eaten in the high street. She took immense pride in the meals she served, and wished for everyone to eat their fill. Food was plentiful; we should want for nothing. This was her greatest expression of love. We all basked in her rosy light as she called us to the table, her voice a gravy-soaked hug. 

First, she would praise my thorough enjoyment of her food. Later, she would subtly question the wisdom of my choices, as if I could have remembered my health and found a way to extract the bacon fat that infused the green beans. This was confusing and more than a little bit hurtful, considering the fact that we had so few opportunities to eat together. I was aware from a young age that I didn’t share the stick-thin body type of my siblings. My parents hadn’t ignored this fact, but also approached it with the understanding that qualifying chubbiness as a personal failing would probably be counterproductive. The look on Grandma’s face indicated that it was absolutely a personal failing. If I had spent more time with her in my youth, I think it’s likely my current relationship with cookies would be dysfunctional. Well, more dysfunctional. 

I witnessed her quiet judgment of my siblings as well. No one was entirely safe, which was comforting in the perverse way congruent suffering can be. Regardless, nothing could take all the fun out of a California vacation, and we knew it was temporary, since home was 2000 miles away. Grandma wanted us to learn about her just as she was learning about us in the brief time we spent in her home. Maybe she thought her small indictments of our character were precious invisible gifts we could carry with us for years to come. 

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A few weeks after we moved back to California, I turned sixteen years old. I ate dinner with my family and then retired to my room to cry sheets of hot tears into my lap, as quietly as possible. We were living with my grandparents in their beautiful ranch style home until we found one of our own. My room was thankfully my own, but it shared a wall with the foyer. Everyone would pass it as they walked down the hall to their own rooms, and I was concerned they would overhear. I was accustomed to moving, but the wound was fresh, and I had yet to make a friend. I wanted to experience this round of grief without exposing anyone else to it. If my family heard me, they would despair on my behalf. Worse, if my grandparents heard me, they would think I was weak.

I was acutely aware that I was an intruder in my grandparents’ house. This feeling persisted during the few months we lived there before moving on, and was renewed each time I visited thereafter. Even as my parents were clearing the house to ready it for sale nearly two years after my grandmother died, I cooked them a perfunctory meal in her kitchen and experienced honest-to-god performance anxiety. There was a place for me in her world, but it felt extremely conditional.

As an adult, I better understand the great secret: no one knows what they’re doing. Children automatically sprout into adults without a competency test, assuming they are wise and/or lucky enough to avoid a premature death. Every adult is working with a limited set of tools, just as they did as children. Barring some major dysfunction, each person’s toolset expands over time, but I find that it is a rare experience to know someone whose flaws are difficult to pinpoint, regardless of their age. The missing tools do not go unnoticed. My dad often says, “we stand on the shoulders of a thousand generations,” usually to help us appreciate our small role in the highly complex ballet that is humanity’s miraculously continuous existence, but also to remind us to view the many errors of our recent ancestors with greater kindness. They were trying their best, after all, and they did teach him how to fish.

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Here follows what I have learned about my grandmother’s life. I’m unsure which portions have been unintentionally fictionalized by my receipt of bad information or my inability to remember, but let’s assume we’re working with a reasonable approximation of reality.

Audrey Maud Robinson was born in Newcastle in 1925. She lived there in relative happiness until 1930, when the depression rocked her world and sunk its jagged teeth into her still-tender psyche. Life got worse before getting a bit better, and then much, much worse: she was 14 years old when WWII made life for everyone in England considerably more stressful. Two years later, the war really came into focus for the Robinsons when Newcastle was blitzed. She joined up as a Wren in the Women’s Royal Navy Service, and started the rest of her life, which would be forever defined by her experiences in the depression and in the war. 

At some point during her service, she met Bill, a tall Air Force man from Oklahoma, and decided either that she loved him or that going to America seemed appealing, what with its cities and countryside unravaged by a seemingly endless stream of bombs falling from the sky… from my perspective as a small child who rarely encountered them, their mutual love seemed genuine, so I’m guessing it was a combination of the two, hopefully with more emphasis on the love. 

Whatever their justifications, they returned to the United States together as the Hunters, well and truly married. Seeing that there was no time to waste, they set about the important business of booming some babies, welcoming two elder sons before witnessing the 1952 birth of my father in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and deciding that they had finally gotten it right. In those early years in America, Audrey also saw rural Oklahoma, which must have been a real treat for a girl from Newcastle. Unfortunately, I don’t know much more about their movements as a new family, but Bill was granted a college degree somewhere along the way and they did settle in California, where all of my dad’s best childhood stories take place. I like to hope that Audrey enjoyed this time, although the realist in me is inclined to imagine that it was punctuated by bouts of extreme loneliness and depression. Being pregnant at all sounds like a nightmare, but being pregnant three times with an ocean separating you from your family and friends sounds like actual torture.

Life was good in California, with Bill entering the world of civil engineering, eventually putting his hand to the project that would become LAX. Money was coming in, and her three little boys were objectively cute. All material needs were provided, which was a welcome change of pace from the deprivation that characterized her entire life in england. She was able to visit her family, sometimes at length. My dad speaks very fondly of his fifth year, spent mostly in england with his mother and her family. Audrey was keeping busy caring for three children and pursuing her own interests. 

She was becoming more accomplished as a cook each day, and she had such skill in sewing that she sometimes made clothes for herself and the boys, though it wasn’t necessary from a financial perspective. She ran a frugal house that allowed her husband’s income to grow into a small fortune, affording them more comforts and better homes. Despite their successes, her boys were difficult, and Bill (ilke the majority of his peers) didn’t realize that a belt wasn’t the answer to their behavioral problems. In an effort to keep everyone on the right path, the Hunters began expecting military discipline at home. 

My dad had a strategic advantage as the youngest. He watched my uncles falter repeatedly, and learned from their mistakes, calculating his behavior to escape the harsher punishments they received from their parents, which included being turned away from the house completely. His brothers did not and would not overlook this fact–whether they were intentionally cruel to him to even the score or if they were just unable to control themselves, we may never know. It’s difficult to withhold judgement of parents in families with these stories, but where do I place my judgment of the dead? 

Her children eventually became upstanding citizens, with the elder sons fully embracing the familial fascination with aviation to become skilled airline mechanics and her baby boy returning to their Oklahoma homeland to obtain a degree in animal husbandry, which would open doors to the world of food science. This career would permit him endless access to nerdy scientist jargon with which to annoy his own children. Her kids were all grown up. They moved away and visited at weekends or holidays with grandkids in tow, but mostly left Audrey and Bill to enjoy their idyllic Southern California life together. They continued to travel, particularly enjoying cruises and visits to England. By all accounts, she had a good life, and they entered their golden years with few complaints.

Bill developed Parkinson’s disease around the turn of the century, and passed away in 2005. Audrey had never lived alone. Her youngest had returned to California in 2002, and specifically chose a home nearby in anticipation of these sad days. My parents became her lifeline as she struggled through the loneliness of grief and as her health began to fail in new and more pressing ways. After two severe back injuries caused by falls, the elder sons thought it would be wise to turn to an assisted living facility, but she would not abide it. She wanted to stay in her home, but did not want to employ a nurse, which would have been required per her poor health. 

At an impasse with their mother and each other, the three boys moved her into a luxurious assisted living facility and hoped for the best. After two days there, Audrey called them in tears, begging to return home. As new empty nesters, my parents took stock of their lives, and found that Audrey was their priority; she couldn’t live in misery. They packed up their house, rented it out, and moved into her home to live there as her carers and companions. 

Their presence in the house brought her many new joys and challenges, including a heretofore unknown affection for her son’s wife, who made incredible efforts to ensure her safety, comfort, happiness, and autonomy throughout her final years. Her health went through a continual cycle of improvement, change, and decline during their time there, with some near misses that called us all to her deathbed only to be (thankfully) sent away. 

She remained in a great deal of pain from her back injuries, and the morphine she was prescribed had a side effect of muddling her thoughts and making her confused, sometimes even affecting her speech. Having been sharp as a tack throughout her life, the combination of being unable to move without pain and being unable to rely on her mental capacity took an immense toll on her quality of life. During a significant hospital visit in 2014, her doctor laid out a potential treatment plan which included yet another surgery, and she instead opted to end her dialysis program, understanding that it would lead inevitably, and somewhat quickly, to kidney failure and the end of her life. My parents helped her spread this news, so family and friends could make their final visits.

Always above average, she lived for more than a week after her final dialysis treatment. Her lucidity diminished consistently over that time, but she enjoyed it as well as she could, sharing smiles with us, listening to The Andrews Sisters, and telling us her favorite stories. Her eyes closed and her breathing slowed, as the hospice nurse had said it would. Her family gathered in her bedroom, and was at her side when her lungs failed to rise. She left us quietly, as her sons counted the seconds after her final breath, patiently awaiting another.

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It never fails to impress me that the entirety of one person’s life, or even millions of lives, can be reduced to a summary of a few words. Do the broad strokes of my grandmother’s life make her more or less sympathetic than she actually was? The details I have are equally confusing, as I have abstracted and extrapolated them to fill gaps for which no one alive today can account, stretching her flaws to cover areas of her personality that might have been delightful. At this point, I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and hope that someone will do the same for me someday.

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