Sweetness Personified by Gillian

Sweetness is not so very common. I have rarely, in fact I think never, heard anyone describe themselves as sweet, it seems to be an attribute solely bestowed by others; and then, as I say, not with great frequency.

My mother was sweet. I thought so, as did most of the people who knew her. I doubt my dad agreed, but that’s another story. Family baggage skews perceptions. And surely there has never existed anyone so sweet that they were thought to be so by absolutely everyone. There are always exceptions. Mom was a teacher and generally considered sweet by kids and parents alike. She taught in one room of the local two room school. I doubt, these days, anyone seen as sweet would survive long in most classrooms. Back then, she just rang a tiny bell and children scuttled to their desks, where they sat silently, arms folded, awaiting orders. Of course there were the trouble makers, but I think they were perhaps somewhat disarmed by my mother’s character. Tricks and scheming and deviltry tend to wither on the vine when faced with sweetness.

My dad was probably not seen as sweet by the men he worked with, nor the local farmers he occasionally chatted to and very occasionally drank with in the local pub.

He most certainly was not seen that way by Mom, peering around that family baggage. But to me he was kind, and thoughtful, and caring. To me he was sweet.

My mother-in-law was sweet. I thought so. Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren thought so. My husband, her son and only child, did not think so. More family baggage.

I doubt too many people see me as sweet, though I would claim to have my moments.

There was just one who consistently called me sweet, both directly to me and in describing me to others: my oldest stepson, Gary. Now for a teenage boy, and later a grown man, to describe the traditionally evil stepmother that way must mean one of two things. Either he is delusional, which in Gary’s case is abundantly plausible as he was a confirmed alcoholic, or she is one terrific stepmom, and I’m going with the latter.

Actually, I can understand why I might have seemed sweet to him. He was, at the time he entered my life, a confused and angry twelve-year-old with a drinking problem. His mother, confirmed alcoholic herself, just encouraged his drinking. His father simply went ballistic at Dale’s every delinquent act, which were legion. So that left me as the sole parental influence who tried to talk calmly about his antics; to understand, to see his view of the world. I failed, in the long run, to bring about any major changes in Gary’s behavior. He died two years ago at the age of 55 when, lounging naked in his hot tub with his wife after a day of heavy drinking, he suffered a massive heart attack. I was, of course, heartbroken. But now time has softened the hardest edges, I see perhaps it was not quite the tragedy it seemed. To die instantly, naked in a hot tub with the one you love, drunk out of your skull; that has to be one of the better ways to go.

Yes, sweetness is very much in the eye of the beholder. Maybe Eva Braun even thought Hitler was sweet. Who knows? I believe we all have a streak of sweetness in us. To some it appears bright and wide and solid. To others, pale and weak. Some people perhaps strengthen it, while with others it diminishes or disappears. None of us can be sweetness personified to all of the people all of the time.

It’s a hard thing to gauge; difficult to measure its results. If I act towards someone in a negative or positive way, I can generally have a pretty good idea of what the results will be; how I’ve made that person feel or act. But I don’t even know if or when I’m being perceived as sweet, so it’s almost impossible to know the effects. Most emotions I can, if I try hard enough, maintain at least some control over; determine not to get angry, to be patient. But I have never actively decided to be sweet. I would not know how. But I do recognize sweetness when I see it in others, and I know one thing. I sure hope that somehow, in this new world in which plain old politeness and civility seem to be dying fast, we do not bury sweetness along with them. We would be much poorer for the loss.

© July 2014 

About the Author 

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.