Grandma

Two years ago today, my grandma passed away. I still don’t like to say it out loud. She had lung cancer. She was diagnosed in November, in hospice taking what we thought were her last breaths by January, then a miraculous revival. We took her home, laughed a lot more and did the best we could. She got weaker and sicker and passed away on July 31, 2007. I was on my way to her house with two baskets of clean laundry in my backseat because her washing machine was broken when my mom called to tell me. She didn’t ask me where I was before she told me, and I drove, sobbing my way across Atlanta, continuing on my way to grandma’s house because that was the only place I knew to go. When things are unbearable, you go home. Grandma’s house was home. Now it’s the homeplace in my mind. When life gets hard or my grief over losing her makes everything a bit colorless, I close my eyes and picture my grandma standing at her kitchen sink, the spot where she probably spent about 6/10 of her life, surrounded by the sweet knick-knacks so comfortingly in the same place for longer than I can remember, and I indulge in a little denial and pretend she’s still there. It gets me by.

I read in a novel that death is like a weight that bears down on the living. You go through life pretty carefree until someone close to you dies, and then you carry the burden of that loss, of the grief, on your shoulders forever. I’ve had two pretty significant losses in my life and I definitely feel the weight of them. Each event in my life from here on out, happy or sad, will be missing something because my Grandma isn’t here. She won’t be at my wedding, she won’t see my law school graduation, she won’t meet my babies. When I’m sad or things aren’t great, I can’t call her or lay my head in her lap and let her stroke my hair, or let her make me some creamed peas and mashed potatoes served up with some home brewed sweet tea. I feel the loss of these moments more than I have words to express.

I am grateful for the time that I had. Grateful for her love, for my memories, and grateful that she raised the beautiful and generous spirit that is my mother. Grateful beyond measure. But I’m sorry too. I’m sorry that I couldn’t spend every single minute with her after we found out she was terminal. Sorry that my tears and inability to say the words I felt rendered me unable to tell her all the things I wanted her to know. I tried so many times. Most of all, I’m sorry that when she was too weak to even get up from her recliner, after so many months of pain and suffering and fighting, and we found ourselves alone together, she looked at me and said “I’m so tired, I wish the Lord would just take me,” and I looked back into her exhausted and sweet blue eyes and said nothing. I’m sorry I was too selfish to say it was okay, too selfish to let you go. I wanted to. I wanted to say it. I wanted you to know I would be okay, our family would be okay, that you had done so good, you had fought so hard, it was okay for you to go. But it took everything I had just to fight back tears and I could not, did not, open my mouth. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to provide you that comfort. I just hope that you knew it, that you could see it on my face and in my eyes.

I love you. I miss you. I still talk to you and listen for you. I’m okay. Our family is okay. You did so good. Thank you for everything. Stay with me. I can’t wait for you to see me graduate from law school, see me get married and watch over my babies. You’re in my heart, always and forever.