The Sneeze

My mother used to stifle her sneezes, much to the chagrin of my father’s mother who was unable to. In fact, her sneezes derailed entire conversations, never mind trains of thought. And not just her conversations, but the conversations of those around her. From what I’ve been told her sneezes have always been exactly the same—a dozen or so tiny sneezes one on top of the other, a brief pause, followed immediately by half a dozen earth-shaking, bone-rattling, turn-you-inside-out wrenches. These are so loud and long you can’t believe she would have any voice left with which to say, “Oh, I beg your pardon,” into her tissue which she kept in a neat wad just under her sleeve, long or short. I’m guessing that, while these fits would embarrass her, she had become quite used to them and took some kind of pride in her ability to really let loose and let her body do its thing, probably the only circumstance in which this was true.

So whenever my mother would completely stifle her infrequent pairs of sneezes by pinching her nose as if she were about to jump into the deep end, you could actually hear a little squeak from inside her head somewhere. She would take her hand away from her now nearly purple face and you were certain that her eyes were just a bit further out of their sockets than they had been a moment ago.

My grandmother seemed to take great pride in following up her requisite, “Bless you,” with, “You really shouldn’t stifle your sneezes, Judy. Someday you’re going to blow out the back of your head.” She actually found a cartoon frame of this and included it in a letter to me to give to Mom. As though she were warning a child not to make faces or they would freeze that way forever. But it was also as if she were sharing a private insight about the joys of masturbation. Her little secret that was her duty to impart on her daughter-in-law. Good news for the long lonely years of marriage ahead.

@2002