I had a few things that I had considered using for today’s post, but they aren’t going to get used. Not today. Today, I’m writing about something else; this is personal… and it’s a bit long-winded.
I received a phone call today at 4:04 P.M. It was my father. He was calling to tell me that my grandmother had just died. He said that she passed while watching television. Quietly. Without warning. Very unexpectedly. He said that he would not have noticed that anything was wrong had it not been for the fact that she was slumped over in her chair.
…
She was my last remaining grandparent. I have been seeing fragmented images of time that we spent together and/or talked on the phone (in no particular order):
- The last time that I was home (February 2002). This was also the last time that I saw her.
- Homemade bread and cakes and cookies. The sense of smell is often associated with memories. I’ll always remember the way that her house smelled when she was baking. I remember a time that she baked a cake for my father and me… ostensibly for our birthdays (we’re in the same month, about three weeks apart)… because I had asked for it.
- How “mad” she would get when I would just show up on her doorstep unannounced. She wasn’t mad… more… worried, I guess, about what I would have done if she hadn’t been at home. (It wasn’t like this was a jaunt across town; at the time, we lived about three hours – and two state lines – apart.) But, I knew that if I had called, she would have gone to the trouble of cooking a big lunch/dinner. I was much happier taking my chances than having her do something like that… which never stopped her from doing it on a smaller scale once I showed up.
- Traveling with her and my grandfather. Including the time that we went to California and I came down with some bug… and the way that she doted over me while it ran its course. And various road trips between their house and Maryland. Or Ohio. Or just down the road to Bluefield or Princeton.
- Spending Christmas vacations at her house. She would let me stay up until just after midnight and play with my toys before going to bed. She and my grandfather would stay up for a bit and play with me.
- The time that she called me to ask me to attempt to talk my sister out of spending a semester studying in Russia. This made me laugh. She was asking me, the one who decided to pull up stakes and move to Utah, to talk one of my sibs out of doing something that they wanted to do? *shakes head* I told her that I would not and could not do it… and that I supported her desire to go. That didn’t earn me any Brownie points.
- Christmas 2000 when I went home… with Jess in tow. And the fact that she forgot Jess’ name… in the middle of a family prayer. Jess and I found this to be rather amusing.
- Watching/listening to her sing with her church choir.
- Picking blackberries in her garden.
- Telling me not to throw rocks at a beehive – something that you wouldn’t think that you would have to tell someone who is allergic to bee stings… but I was kid; as such, I knew that I wouldn’t get stung – and then her taking care of me after a bee decided to prove me wrong.
- Spaghetti! I have yet to find someone who could fix spaghetti that tasted like hers.
- The time that I drove from my apartment in North Carolina to her house in West Virginia, picked her up and drove her to my father’s (in Maryland) because she had… hmm… I don’t remember what the reason was. I just remember that time was critical and that my schedule was the only one open enough for to get her, get to Maryland and get back home without creating major conflicts. I remember talking with her as we drove through western Virginia and Maryland. I don’t recall the content of the conversation, but the overall “feeling” that I am getting from the memory is “good.”
- Taking her to buy a computer when she had decided that she wanted to learn to use one. She didn’t use it that much, but my sibs use it when they’re home.
- I even remember a time when I was spending a couple of weeks with her and my grandfather and found a few cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon that my uncle had left in the downstairs refrigerator after one of his visits. And I convinced her to let me have one. After all, my mother had let me have a few sips of beer before. She protested, saying that there was no way that I was going to drink a whole one and that she would either have to drink it herself – she hated the taste – or pour it out. But, I persisted and she let me have a can. I opened it, took a few sips… and I was pretty much done. She wasn’t really happy with me about that. I was about six or seven at the time.
- Finding out that she was leaving WV and moving in with my dad and stepmother. I think that I gave my dad some good-natured flak about the changes/improvements that he made to the basement when she moved in compared to when I was living there.
- More… lots more.
On the way home, I had a thought. A random one. Imagine that. I started thinking of the various incarnations and personifications of Death. The sickle-wielding, robe-enshrouded Grim Reaper. Neil Gaiman’s gothic sister of The Endless. Gods and goddesses of pantheons come and gone. A fair angel alighting next to a person to usher them on to their place in Heaven.
Then an image popped into my head: Neil Gaiman’s Death appearing next to my grandmother… the way that she appeared to her charges in issue #8 of The Sandman. I could see my grandmother looking up at her and shaking her head. Not out of fear. Not out of disbelief. But, because she just didn’t “get” this Death and the way that she was dressed.
It made me smile. And that made me happy… if just for a moment. And that was a good thing.
People have asked me how I am feeling. That’s not an easy question to answer. I’m feeling a lot of things: Sad. Numb. I’d even say a little “lost.” A bit of frustration… and maybe a little angry. But, I don’t feel “bad.” I’m not sure that I can adequately put it in my own words, so I’ll use an excerpt from Dan Millman’s The Way of the Peaceful Warrior to try and sum it up:
I decided to pay Joseph a visit and tell him what had happened. As I walked down Shattuck a couple of fire engines wailed by me. I didn’t think anything about it until I neared the cafe and saw the orange sky. I began to run.The crowd was already dispersing when I arrived. Joseph had just arrived himself and was standing in front of his charred and gutted cafe. I heard his cry of anguish and saw him drop slowly to his knees and cry. By the time I reached him, his face was serene.
The fire chief came over to him an told him that the fire had probably started at the dry cleaners next door. “Thank you,” Joseph said.
“Joseph, I’m so sorry.” “Yes, me too,” he replied with a smile. “But, a few moments ago you were so upset.”
He smiled. “Yes, I was.” I remembered Soc’s words, “Let feelings flow, then let them go.”
Until now, this had seemed like a nice concept, but here, before the blackened, waterlogged remains of his beautiful cafe, this gentle warrior had demonstrated how to make peace with emotions.
“It was such a beautiful place, Joseph,” I sighed, shaking my head.
“Yes,” he said wistfully, “wasn’t it?”
For some reason, his calm now bothered me. “Aren’t you upset at all?”
He looked at me dispassionately, then said, “I have a story that you might enjoy, Dan. Want to hear it?”
“Well — OK.”
In a small fishing village in Japan, there lived a young, unmarried woman who gave birth to a child. Her parents felt disgraced and demanded to know the identity of the father. Afraid, she refused to tell them. The fisherman she loved had told her, secretly, that he was going off to seek his fortune and would return to marry her. Her parents persisted. In desperation, she named Hakuin, a monk who lived in the hills, as the father.Outraged, the parents took the infant girl up to his door, pounded until he opened it, and handed him the baby, saying, “This child is yours; you must care for it!”
“Is that so?” Hakuin said, taking the child in his arms, waving good-bye to the parents.
A year passed and the real father returned to marry the woman. At once they went to Hakuin to beg for the return of the child. “We must have our daughter,” they said.
“Is that so?” said Hakuin, handing the child to them
Joseph smiled and waited for my response.
“An interesting story, Joseph, but I don’t understand why you’re telling it to me now. I mean, your cafe just burned down!”
“Is that so?” he said. Then we laughed as I shook my head in resignation.
“Joseph, you’re as crazy as Socrates.”
“Why, thank you, Dan — and you’re upset enough for the both of us. Don’t worry about me, though; I’ve been ready for a change. I’ll probably move south soon — or north. It makes no difference.”
“Well, don’t go without saying good-bye.”
“Good-bye, then,” he said, giving me one of his bear hugs. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
“Are you going to say good-bye to Socrates?”
He laughed, replying, “Socrates and I rarely say hello or good-bye. You’ll understand later.” With that, we parted.
About 3:00 A.M. Friday morning I passed the clock at Shattuck and Center on my way to the gas station. I was more aware that ever of how much I still had to learn. I stepped into the office already talking a mile a minute. “Socrates, Joseph’s cafe burned down. He’s going away.”
“Strange,” he said, “cafes usually burn up.” He was making jokes. “Anyone hurt?” he asked, without apparent concern.
“Not that I know of. Did you hear me, aren’t you even a little upset?”
“Was Joseph upset?”
“Well… yes and no.”
“Well, there you are.” And that topic was simply closed.
Well, there you are. I’m going to miss my grandmother, but I’m happy that she went peacefully. There will be a definite change in the house without her there.
I think that there are more things that I had wanted to say. But this was enough for now.
Namaste.
