lollies

when i was growing up my family would go and visit my wallis grandparents every friday after school and stay for a roast dinner. the whole extended family would show up... cousins, aunties, uncles, random strays someone found on the street. i was one of the youngest cousins and was pretty captivated by how cool my older cousins were. my cousin kay came to friday night dinner one week with a brand new batman t-shirt on and i just about exploded with jealousy.

BATMAN T-SHIRT.

i wanted to be her so bad that it was beginning to hurt a little when i breathed.

five minutes later her younger brother (my cousin david) threw a gravy-covered roast potato at her. the new, crisp, white, batmanny goodness was destroyed. i was distraught for both kay and myself – couldn’t davo see he was hurting us all? i considered offering her my knock-off hypercolour... but we all knew there was no replacing the batman. there’s a streak of mild (or legitimate) insanity that runs through the veins of the wallis clan, which meant that friday nights were full of laughter and drama. and then there was the food. my grandma’s roast potatoes remain the best i have ever eaten. i think the trick was the 5:1 oil to veggie ratio.

my grandma wallis: a strong, remarkable woman who stretched every resource she had at her disposal to breaking point in order to care for her family. upon initial inspection you would assume she was a garden variety grandma. i don’t remember an occasion of walking into her living room and not seeing her on her recliner with a crochet hook in hand.  but if you hung around for a few minutes until the footy replay began you’d have seen this crochet-bandit grandma burst out of her skin and approach near hysteria. in her later years she couldn’t watch live sport on tv anymore... the excitement was literally too much for her ginormous heart. she could only watch replays where the result was known... and even then she had to take half a sedative to cope with the excitement. she loved sport like i love donuts... and she loved her family.

a few years ago my mum reminded me of this story about me and grandma.

grandma and grandpa wallis had a lolly jar in their kitchen that never ran dry. for a young kt marie, this = heaven. for an older kt marie, this = heaven. i love lollies. i will smash an allen’s party mix any time of day. apparently i got into a bit of a habit when i was a child of walking into my grandparents house and immediately asking grandma if i could have a lolly. my mum was obviously a bit embarrassed by her sugar-addicted offspring when she sat me down one friday to give me a stern talking to. “kt, it’s rude to always ask for lollies. today you aren’t allowed to ask grandma for lollies. just sit down and have a normal conversation like a normal kid.” the message was devastating in its clarity.

i don’t remember mum having this conversation with me but i can only imagine that this news shattered me almost as much as the batman-gravy disaster. i would never be as cool as kay and now here was this woman telling me i couldn’t ask for lollies anymore. what was the point in living?

as we walked up the front stairs of my grandparents house that afternoon, my mum reminded me of our deal. no talk of lollies. i was not to mention the word.

we walked through the front door. i kissed my grandpa on his bald head like i had a hundred times before and then approached grandma in her recliner. she looked up at me with her gorgeous sparkling eyes and cheeky grin. she wanted to give me the world... we both knew it. and by ‘the world’ i mean ‘the lollies’. this was clearly going to hurt her as much as it was hurting me so i had to think quick. i hesitated a little, eventually kissed my grandma’s curly head, and simply said, “hello grandma, do you have something yummy to put in my mouth?”

there was no talk of lollies. i didn’t even mention the word.