An Outside Shower

My grandmother, Nana, tortured her grandchildren and neighbors by taking outside showers, until the shower broke and no one within miles who knew how to fix it. The device was really a long faucet that went straight up with a shower head on it, and a place to attach a hose on the side, like a shower/water faucet combination. There was a concrete floor under the shower so your feet didn't sink in the grass and form a muddy mess while you bathed.

Nana's property included the best of the old and new worlds: for instance, her garden and ancient shower were next door to her neighbor’s tennis court and paved circler driveway, whereas Nana’s driveway was gravel. However, the ingredients of the old and new worlds did coexist, and sandwiched between her back porch and the neighbor’s back door stood the outside shower. Nana used the shower mainly to take her outside showers, but it also functioned as a water supply to the garden and the rest of the side yard, when necessary.

She couldn't understand why her grandchildren refused to take an outside shower, although, I think she did notice how eager we were to take an inside bath anytime. It wasn’t the fact that Nana took an outside bath that was the problem, our embarrassment was due to the neighbors clear view of her at their breakfast table. In other words, she could never grasp the fact that the people next door may not wish to view her soap her body, underwear or not, in the gleaming sun while they drank their morning coffee.


A perfect example is the evening I remembered yesterday, an evening that will rest with me until the end of my days: I heard my older brother from Nana's back porch screaming, as if bitten by a snake, “Nana! Please stop!” he yelled, however impossible it was that she might hear, “I swear Nana, I’m never coming over here again if you don’t stop! Mr. Coors (our neighbor) is having a tennis party next door for some of his friends at his Country Club! They can see you, Nana!” he screamed at the top of his lungs! “They are watching you as we speak!”

I saw my brother jumping up and down and waving his hands as my grandmother put the cream rinse in her hair, and gently lathered the shampoo, oblivious to his shrieking!

My eyes followed my brother, who generated the attention of the tennis party next door from waving his hands back and forth and jumping up and down in the garden; which was adjacent to my grandmother’s backyard shower and the neighbors tennis court.

Here is the image: the tennis players and guests next door at the party, her garden, my brother jumping up and down screaming, and my grandmother gently lathering her hair. I stood on her back porch wishing a nice family would rescue me from this insane existence. I wanted to get as far away from this crazy family as possible-

Although, now when I recall the memories I'm grateful our minds are capable of recording moments experienced long ago, because I can replay the voice and character of my best friend, my grandmother, Nana. So often we forget the impact our family members have on our lives, until we think of a song, smell, or see something like an outside shower to help us remember a shared moment long ago.


Nana passed away eight years ago, and I still recall this shower drama as if it were yesterday. I hope that when we remember a shared experience of long ago that the ones we've lost remember it too- that would be my idea of heaven on earth.