I am not a religious person, nor am I particularly a spiritual person. My dad stated that today was All Saint’s Day, and since he is much more likely to know something like that, I believe him. So, since this is the day that we remember the people who have passed away in the last year, I am writing this post in honor of my grandmother, who passed away on January 19.
My last memory of you is your tiny body sitting in a rocking chair with a dazed look on your face. Everyone else, who saw that look on a daily basis, appeared to have gotten used to it. I had just seen it for the first time two days before, and still could not accustom myself to it. We could say it was due to the massive doses of pain medications that you were being given, or you were just confused as to what was happening to your body. After 91 years of battling many things: little money, breast cancer, the loss of a child, an insidious cancer had taken control and made its presence known on your favorite holiday: Christmas.
You did not believe that I was there. I had moved up my expected visit by three weeks after a conversation with my dad. But the damage had been done. I walked into your bedroom straight off the plane. You grabbed my hand and kept saying “God be with you until we meet again.” I could do nothing but weep. Your beautiful face did not light up at the sight of your distant granddaughter; it was if you were grabbing onto my hand to stay into the land of the living, or perhaps believing I was a spirit, that I would lead you away from the confusion, the pain, the indiginity into death. My stepmother walked into the room, and the fog lifted. Your face lit up. “I’m seeing false people,” you told her. “You’ll tell them to go away.” My heart contracted at the words, and I wept all the harder.
Everyone who met you had the same initial impression: full of energy, full of life, sweet. You remembered friends of mine that I had introduced you to once, and you wanted to hear how they were doing. As a teenager, I would drop in unexpectedly with whoever I was hanging out with that day and you would stop whatever you were doing to offer us refreshments and sit and talk with us. You opened your heart and home without question.
I still remember the taste of your vegetable soup; one I have tried to duplicate with miserable results. You put oatmeal in your chocolate chip cookies, a concept I found bizarre as a child, but I now love. Your apple pie and date bread, which only made their appearance a couple times a year, were welcome treats.
You taught me how to sew. First you paid for sewing lessons; then we spent a summer assembling a dress. I learned more from you than the teacher you paid. It is a skill that I abandoned, but now have developed. I now have about four sewing projects in process.
You loved music. We must have music in our blood: both of your existing children play instruments, as do their children. You had members of your immediate family who played instruments, though you were never taught, the penalty of being a younger child in a large family during the Depression. I was twelve when you bought your first organ and started to teach yourself to play. By the time I left for college, I was giving you my piano books and your husband had refinished an upright piano for you. You still preferred me to play it, though. You kept saying you didn’t have enough time to practice. You came to all of my recitals.
Christmas was your favorite holiday. You would decorate the tree and house, but your favorite thing was setting up the village under the tree, complete with ice skating rink and a huge model of a German castle. Nothing matched, and the scale was totally off from one end of the village to the other, but it was beautiful, and you loved it. It was the last thing you did before taking to your bed, never to leave that room again.
So, we come back to that long, sad, weekend. My last day there, my dad and I did something we have always done for you: we played duets. Suddenly, you were there. You applauded, you commented. We played and played until the heat of the room and our tears prevented us from continuing. It was the only time I knew that you actually believed that I was there; that I wasn’t some drug-induced hallucination. It allowed me to say good-bye to you; to tell you that I loved you. I forgot to say thank you.
You died six days later.
So, on this Sunday, I remember you. And I wish that you were still here.
