Written by Shannon Connolly
Photo: © Depositphotos.com/Dmyrto_Z

 

• She was somewhere between 10 and 13 when she was put up for adoption.
• A wealthy family took her in until she was in her late teens, when she met and married James McIassac.
• She lived in a town full of good-intentioned housewives. 
• She worked as an aerobics Instructor into her 50’s.
• People in town called her a witch because she was known to hang out with the town warlock. This was a man who was thought to practice black magic.  They might have had an affair.
• She called wine that she didn’t like “Panther Piss.”
• She nicknamed her youngest granddaughter “Gertrude,” just because. 

I was around 4 years old, sitting in Nana’s living room. The TV remote was somehow connected to the television with a wire.  That’s pretty much all I remember. The way the story is told is that my mother called to check up on me, and my grandmother said I was fine and happy: “I took Gert to the store and got her a movie, she’s watching it now.” The movie was Jaws.

• She rented a beach house on the Cape every summer with her girlfriends. 
• She once came home late from the beach – dropped off in the back of a pickup filled with sailors.
• Everyone called her ‘Mumma Babs.’
• She liked to smoke weed, but only every once in a while.
• She dyed her hair blonde and kept it long, even until the very end.
• She was married to James her whole life.  He passed away years before her. He laid his hands on her more than once.

I’m so embarrassed now, looking back on it – which is a strange reaction, but I hear it’s pretty common. Within one week of meeting him, he said he loved me.  He joked about getting married within the first month, but it wasn’t quite a joke. He turned sour and started cheating on me after three. He hit me two times, and choked me up against a wall once.  I was drunk and provocative. A part of me still believes that it was my fault and I was just asking for it. “He’s a scientist, not a sociopath” I scolded myself. The last thing he said to me was “I hope your grandmother dies,” on a street corner in Kendall Square.

• She started dating a man that looked like Santa Claus after her husband died.
• She had, without question, the best sense of style.
• She always kept $50.00 in cash in her wallet that she called “Fuck You” money, which was to be used only in the circumstance where you want something that you normally wouldn’t spend the money on, but you decide to just fuck it.
• Her recipes were simple. For chicken soup it was “Just boil the shit out of it.”  She was a great cook.
• She loved the National Enquirer and Hostess products.

She once came home from the beach after sunset claiming there were men who had just vanished into thin air and the rocks on the sand were glowing.  We went down the next night. It did appear as if the rocks were glowing.  She told me the two men she met were aliens and the rocks were moon rocks.  They really did glow, I’m not just saying this.  After she passed away I discovered a picture frame she had given me with a picture of the two of us in it.  I have mud all over my bare ass, and she’s laughing in the background holding a beer.  I flipped the frame over and the name of the company that made it was “Moon Rock.” This wasn’t an accident.

• She would tell you she had a mouse tattoo on her hip, and when she went to show you, she would say “Oops!  Pussy ate it!”
• She hosted every holiday and would invite her former sister-in-law.
• She would pause the part of Dirty Dancing where you almost see Swayze’s dick.
• She claimed her great-grandmother was Cherokee, and that’s why her cheekbones were the way they were.
• Her nose constantly ran.

I wasn’t a very pretty kid. I’ve never been a pretty kid. I’ve found ways to navigate around that issue. Do something extraordinary, be funny, and try to be extra thoughtful.  It works, and I’ve had times where I’ve tricked even myself, the trickster, that I could be sort of pretty.

• She had a collection of strange pocketbooks including a tea kettle, several lunch boxes, a chihuahua, and one that was shaped like an alligator.
• She gave great advice like “Sometimes you have to be the adult,” and “Wear sunblock or you’ll feel like shit.”
• She retired and then started working again managing the high-end boutique of a low-end store.
• She put fake bullet hole decals on her car.
• She played Mrs. Claus every year.

Her name was Barbara Shannon and she was really fucking great.

***

Shannon Connolly is a comedian living in Somerville Massachusetts.  Her big girl job is at a video game studio. Mama Babs was her grandmother, and namesake.