Full stop is a short story which is written by Alecia McKenzie. It tells about correspondence between grandchild and grandmother. I red it from the Open Road. The grandchild Carmen is almost thirty and the grandmother`s name is Scottie who is pretty old. Scottie raised Carmen and her brother in an island.
Now, grandmother lives there alone and Carmen lives in New York with Normy. Normy is Carmen`s husband which Scottie calls hubby in the letters. Scottie hasn`t seen Carmen for a while so in a letter Scottie tells to Carmen that she would like to see her and her brother Richard before she die. That is Scotties excuse for getting Carmen to visit her.
Carmen regularly sends money to Scottie involved in the letters because she is so old and not so rich. With the money Grandma Scottie is able to buy a new mattress to her bed and a dress to a funeral. Scottie also put the money in the bank and get to buy some paint for her old house, but she hasn`t money enough to pay for a painter. Carmen doesn`t like an idea that Grandma will paint the house herself, but Scottie tells that there is another reason too than money: she thinks that painters on the island are all thieves. And Scottie manage to paint it.
Carmen also send money to Scottie for getting somebody to put burglar bars over all the windows, because on the island there are thieves who are breaking into everybodys house. Scottie says that she doesn`t like the burglar bars and that God will protect her. However, at the end of the story, she decides to put up the burglar bars because the robbers were broke into Scotties friend`s house. I think that her decision is symbolic of changes in her relationship with Carmen in the way that she agrees to change things because of Carmen and in the way that both of them takes care of each other.
Carmen has a mother too, who live in England, but Carmen doesn`t want to meet her mother because she have seen her only once and she hasn`t forgive her it. Mother`s story what happened once is a little different than Grandmother`s. She blame Scottie almost everything, but Scottie says to Carmen that don`t believe her.
Carmen`s brother is Richard and he lives in California. He doesn`t write very much to his Grandmother because of his work, he says. Someone could think that Richard is just like his mother, who just leaves and doesn`t care her relatives, instead of believe him. In the other hand, some believe him because they have themselves been in the same situation where they hadn`t no time to keep in touch their relatives.
My opinion is that Grandmother Scottie is caring, sense of humor and polite, because already at the beginning she says:”Thanks for the money.” When Scottie upbraids her grandchild of her way to write, I think that she says it a bit joykingly. Scottie also prays for Carmen every night and sends the letters to her so, that means me that she is caring.
My opinion of a question ”Is Grandma a good Christian?” is that I can`t classify who is a good or who is a bad Christian because all people are equal. Only which means is question that has a person accepted Jesus as your personal savior or in other words, is a person believer. The only one who knows the answer to the question, is a human believer or not, is Lord. What I can see on the text, Scottie prays, so she must to believe in God. She also tells points from the Bible, so I would assume that she is a believer.
I think that Scottie speaks the truth of that why she raised Carmen. Of course, I can`t be sure, but I think that if Scottie is a believer how could she lie to her own grandchild that her mother couldn`t take care of her? Carmen`s mother says that when she came back for her children, Scottie refused to give them up. But who could take the mother`s children away from her?
