I don't remember much of my dead grandmother.
(Geez, what a way to start, right?)
Her death was right at the beginning of when my memory loss starts - that period of six months that was filled with so much dissociation that not a single memory registered - and it's almost fully blank except for the sour taste in my mouth as money-hungry relatives descended on the inheritance.
You're not supposed to say anything bad about the dead, but she was a bad person.
All her life, she played favourites. She was stubborn, and had a temper, and ruled the family with an iron fist. She wasn't someone who loved many people; it wasn't even a contest with her, she either chose you or she didn't, and that was a choice you couldn't influence in any way. God knows she certainly didn't choose me; out of my siblings, I was definitely the least favourite. To be fair, I didn't take it personally; kind of hard to, when she somehow had a favourite and least favourite grandchild between two twins.
She's the reason why my father's so fucked up (Listen, I may not have been a wanted child, but she would have 100% aborted my father if the pregnancy wasn't discovered too late and that is something she explicitly told him), she's the reason why he thinks that neglect is normal and can't have a single normal relationship for the life of him. In a way, I inherited all of the trauma she gave him.
I also inherited her knitting needles and an old sewing machine, the only belongings of her I took while the rest of the family was squabbling over expensive vases and fur coats. Ready-to-wear things weren't exactly available when she grew up, so both her and my mother were great and knitting and crocheting and sewing and everything in between. For my mom? It was a necessity, so the moment she could stop, she did. But for her? It was a hobby.
It was, for a second, one of the few things we could bond over, even though I was only a crocheter at that time. I was always bad at it, never having enough patience to make sure everything's perfectly even. I still don't; nobody just does handmade stuff anymore so the fact that I try is impressive by itself.
Clank go the knitting needles. I've been on a roll this year, learning needlework and mending in my free time, inspired by many nightmares of zombie apocalypses, but knitting is new; I've been at it for a week, using YouTube tutorials to slowly struggle through some basic stitches. Now, I'm about to start making my first (very very basic) sock. Yep, just one for now. I don't have enough needles to make two at a time like people recommend.
Clank go the knitting needles. I learn by myself, so it's fun; if my mother would be the one teaching me, I would have already quit after a rage blowout. I don't know what it would have been like, if my dead grandmother taught me to knit; she never taught me anything, but the people she paid attention to did seem to enjoy it when she did.
Clank go the knitting needles. I'm not good at relationships, either; burned too much and too hot at too young of an age, weathered by grief and loss and broken promises. I'm afraid to trust people, I know that. I'm trying, but I'm still a bit too broken to trust myself not to damage others, while time just keeps going on, and on, and on, never stopping to let me catch up to my age.
Clank go the knitting needles. I wonder if I'll end up like her; if I, too, will end up inspiring at least three generations of trauma and overachievers. They just dropped our practicals grades; I was so afraid to fail that my review ended up being 65 pages. I'm one of the three people in my group who have an A; one good winter exam, and I'll be on a high scholarship. The weird thing is that it wasn't hard. I guess that just means I'm making progress towards being a good doctor, even if for now that means being a good paper-pusher.
Clank go the knitting needles. She didn't like my mother either; they were too similar so they clashed personalities. The thing is, we're similar, too; similar in flaws, similar in figure, similar in expressions and snark, similar in mind. I use her micro, one-person pots and pans to cook in my one-person apartment, and use her knitting needles and her yarn to learn to create fabric from nothing, while knowing almost nothing of the person who it all belonged to before.
... I just hope the sock won't unravel halfway through once I try to knit it.