26 November 2011 When I was little, she was Grandma Margaret--my Mama's Mama who lived way up north in Philadelphia. My Granny was my Daddy's Momma, whom I saw every week.
But now she's my one and only Gran, and although I don't often say it, I'm very grateful and lucky to have her as a part of my life, at this time in my life.
I all so often play to the funnier side of things. It comes so naturally to me--harping on the odd, the juxtaposed, the annoying and all the things that come after "Oh lort ..." Storytelling seems too easy sometimes. I love trying to capture little moments with words; it's probably why taking pictures rarely occurs to me--I'm always so busy trying to cull all my words together to tell you what I've just seen, heard and felt.
In my Gran's case, a woman who's had her share of strife and almost unspeakable heartbreaks, it is perhaps best (and easiest) to talk about her in ways that inspire laughter. Nobody wants to cry all the time or anymore, not when there's still so much living left for us all to do. Still, she is one of the most blatantly ornery people I've ever met and it just makes me laugh out loud sometimes.
"Darn, Danita. You gotta open ALL the blinds?"
"Gran. It's dark in here; I don't do darkness in the daytime. You need a little sunshine in your life--you are my sunshine, my only sunshine--"
"Oh c'mon. You can go somewhere else with that. I don't want to hear that. And don't be leaving my door open either."
Just so many things about her--a whole lifetime of tics, scowls and razor-sharpened eyebrow raises. The crackle in her voice; the slow way her head rises right before she looks at you in dismay to say, "Are you kidding?!"; her no-holds-barred way of bashing someone's (anyone's) ineptitude in the kitchen. Her ah-HA-ha-sigh laugh tickles me. It is not a laugh that comes easily. It's one of the most economical laughs I've ever heard. It has this world-weary sigh at the end of it, as if something not-so-funny is always on the cusp of breaking through.
Still. She is O-R-N-E-R-Y. Ern'ry if you want to get it right.Yesterday she looked my 11-month old cousin dead in her wide-eyed, expectant but hesitant face and exclaimed in her full rasp, "Whatcha lookin' at me for little girl?! I don't wantcha!"
Now babies are already predisposed to be yay or nay about old folks. They smell worse than the greenest, most suspect Gerber-ish goop; their bodies are held in ways the belie any warmth or cuddling; their ears and eyes, the corners of their mouths--they all offer that droopy disdain. Little Ava ain't even talkin' yet, but she knew well enough to totter right on along.
Gran's voice isn't shrill, but it will cut through you. It has an icy, hardened crispness to it, no doubt enhanced by years of cigarette smoking. But it is also seasoned with age, guile and a very sharp tongue. It warbles with the weight of weary lungs seized by cancerous cells, but it says what it needs to say in perfect time.
6 December 2011
2:08 a.m.
I wake up gasping for air, coughing, and she's gone.
I sit up in the bed not knowing what's already happened, but the coughing won't cease and I can't catch my breath. It's never happened before. I'm scared. I pacify myself with a Ricola and rest my head on my pillow.
The phone rings and my Mama's warm voice bubbles over with tears. Gran just passed away.
So few words of comfort there are at a moment like that ...
She woke me as if to say goodbye, but I know she's left me with more than this cough.
7:42 a.m.
Gran is gone. So long, Gran.
When I was a kid I always wondered why she said goodbye like that. One time I remember we dern near waged a goodbye-last-word war on the phone:
"Bye, Grandma Margaret."
"So long."
"So long what?"
"So long. That's how I say goodbye."
"But what's so long about it?"
"Keep asking questions."
So long you held on. So long enough to love us.
So long you bore your burdens, your heartaches with a ferocity that kept us at bay, kept us in check, kept us protected.
So long will my memories of you remain. So long until we eat your spaghetti together again.
So long as I live I'll be grateful your path blazed for mine.
