An excerpt from a proposal for a documentary project about my grandma
“For here is the truth: each day contains much more than its own hours, or minutes, or seconds. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that every day contains all of history.”
I’ve come to understand my maternal grandma, Rosa/Ray Arrington Simms, as a determined and meticulous documentarian. The oldest of seven children of one pocket of a large but tight-knit Wilson, NC-based Black family (the Arrington clan), I think she was motivated by a sense of responsibility for preserving in some way the moments she shared with the people she loved—her grandparents, great grandparents, and elders; her parents, Hattie and Edward/Bud; her siblings, Gerry, Joyce, Willie, Roy, Brenda, and Lisa; her husband, Joe; her daughters, Wanda and Kim; her grandchildren, me included; and many aunties, uncles, first cousins, second cousins, cousins removed, play cousins, nieces, nephews, and those kindred of unspecific or undetermined relation. I doubt she felt confident that anyone else would.
In the years before her various chronic ailments—heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.—slowed her down and ultimately confined her to a bed, I recall her usually having a Polaroid camera within reach, either around her neck or on an end table or on the mantle. They weren’t fancy—the ones I remember most vividly were plain, plastic, and gray. I have one of the last and can’t bear to let it go despite the fact that it doesn’t work anymore. But when she had it and it did, the loud click and the burst of light and the sound of the drawer sliding out and withdrawing let me know that she was working—during holidays, family reunions (also holidays), cookouts, graduations, yard sales, functions, situations, etc. I felt lucky when she let me do the shaking.
The photo albums that fill the bookshelves and drawers and closets and the space under the beds in her house are heavy with the instant prints, many of them browned and faded by the years. On the back of most are a few words in her wispy handwriting—sometimes the date or where the photo was taken, and sometimes who’s in it, and sometimes what age they were. Some of it is in her shorthand, and many of the folks pictured are identified with nicknames only—we use a lot of them (I’m Dougie or Boo). The photos alone are treasures, but to have this written record feels almost unbelievable.
My grandma died on April 30, 2018. Not long after laying her to rest and with an unmistakable heaviness, we began the process of going through the things she left behind. My grandpa wasn’t at all interested in keeping much around. Maybe he thought it would be too hard to be confronted with daily reminders of his wife of fifty-nine years and, thus, her absence. (He’s not the type who would readily admit this.) Either way, not long after, in a cabinet under an end table beside the couch in the den, we found fifty planners, one for each year from 1967 to 2017. To some extent, my mom knew of them—towards the end, she was sometimes the one to buy them (and, as I learned later, she secretly embellished them with notes as a kid towards the beginning). Still, she says that she didn’t really know exactly how my grandma was using them or to what extent. And to me, they were completely new.
We learned that my grandma had kept fifty years of notes, a record of many of her days and how she spent them (at least in part) and things she needed to remember and minutiae. For example, I know that on January 22, 1967, a troop that included my mom and my aunt had a total of $0.41 in their treasury. (I feel like I remember my mom telling me that my grandma led an off-the-books Girl Scout troop, but I’ll have to verify.) On February 5, she picked up a “picture book” of some sort (she did this regularly throughout 1967). On the same day, my grandpa owed my mom $1 and my aunt $2. My grandma’s brother Roy owed my mom $3. On April 23, my grandma’s grandma turned 75.
I realize that these planners aren’t a complete or exhaustive record, but what is? I do imagine that they’ll provide a cool window into my grandma’s day-to-day life. I hope that they’ll help me better understand the lens through which she viewed and kept track of her family, her life, and the world around her. I look forward to spending time with them—my grandma’s parting gift.
