Dear Grandma
Dear Grandma,
Nearly every day of the past week I have found myself thinking “there is something significant about this day.” I knew that at least some day in the 20′s of this month meant something to me. It drove me nuts, because I knew it had to do with someone I loved. Perhaps a birthday. Something important no doubt. But I could not figure it out, so I passed myself off as crazy.
How I despise myself for not remembering what it was.
Today, it is your birthday. Two years ago you started your real life. True life. Beautiful, beautiful life. How could I forget?
I’m sorry.
It must be no accident that I wore your pretty pink cowboy boots today. Everyone here loves the shoes you gave me. They tell me how “SHNAZZY” my grandma must have been. I just smile and tell them “I know.”
I’ve thought about you a lot the last few months. Once you think you’ve grieved it all, the smallest thing will set you off. Pinwheel cookies, Betty Boop (I never understood why you liked her!), wigs, scratchy voices… You know it is amazing to me that after nearly months of not being able to cry, the one thing that released it was watching a movie about cancer and lying on my roomie’s bed thinking of you, your suffering…and how I left grandpa. Its just so hard to be there with someone else. She took out your chair, but I wouldn’t let them throw it away. She is wonderful and never tries to replace you…but she is so nothing like you, I just miss your sweet…littleness.
Littleness…thank you for the genes. Every time people look at me in wonder and say “HOW are you so small?!” I say with pride “my grandma! She was small to the day she died.” I don’t always tell them just how small though, my sweet little grandma in her Hospice bed, wasting away to 60…50…maybe even 40 pounds. And yet you used ever breath to make sure we were turning all those other hopeless people into Christians…and turning those boys down the street’s parties from beer parties to Holy Spirit parties.
I’m sorry I failed you. I didn’t even act on that dying wish.
Again. Grandma how do you do this to me? So many things I want to cry over, but almost nothing does it to me but this.
Thank you for letting me sleep on the window seat by your bed. Thank you for letting me feed you ice chips, its the only way I knew how to show you my love; it was probably more for me than you. I think I inherited your tendency to have the hardest time telling people you REALLY care about just how much you truly love them. But don’t worry Grandma…I know you loved me. I still remember the first time you said it to me. You softened so much when Judah got sick. Thank you for letting me read you Psalms and kiss your forehead. Thank you for telling me I smelled good when I used that ocean scented shampoo in the tiny Hospice shower. I still think of you every time I see ocean scented shampoo.
Sometimes people say that people you love have little windows in Heaven where they can look down on you. I thought that was ridiculous, but who can understand until they’ve had someone go there? A few days ago I had a moment when I felt something. If it is true…if somehow you can look down on me…I know that you did then. And I know that you were proud of me somehow. I don’t even remember what I was doing, something here at Dibor with Jesus in it. Did you smile on me?
I miss laying on your floor, next to the wood stove…eating icecream or cheezits or stale saltines…watching The God’s Must Be Crazy or Gone Fishin’. Don’t worry Grandma, you showed your love.
They say that sometimes your thoughts or emotions will react to things even when you don’t consciously remember them. I wish it was more but suddenly I think…no wonder I was singing “You Make Me Feel So Young” yesterday. I taught it to one of my roomies. Maybe I was trying to think of you and be close to you without even knowing it.
I love you Grandma. You are so beautiful. You did good. I miss you. I’m sorry I didn’t get closer to you. Who knew it could feel this deep? I’ll see you soon.
Sincerely, Tab
~
Of course as I type this a perfect song comes on.
“It’s difficult to say goodbye after only one life”
