“She taught me how to wage a cold war with quiet charm…”
In the quiet of my mind, the place I go to on a long drive or the place I ponder sometimes in the dark of the night is a memory, many memories actually. But if we call a person as a whole a memory it is my Grandmother.
I hate to say “I miss her“, missing her is not at all how I feel. It can not possibly describe the longing I have to hear her voice. She sits quietly now in a home that you go to while you wait to depart this Earth.
A home full of people who see her as just another body, they have no idea how much beauty her soul holds or I guess held.
In many ways I believe she is just a body now. Her mind left us years ago. Not even a remnant of her true self remains. Just flesh.
Her best qualities came from years of hardship and were born out of strength. She held her chin up while the rest of us would have buried our heads.
Her beautiful ability to lend a helping hand came from a compassion most of us do not own anymore. Her selfless acts were something I would watch as a child. I would say to myself that I would be just like her when I grew up. I would not run from those in need, yet run towards them.
I am biased when it comes to my Grandmother, she used to call me her favorite, Lord knows she was mine, my favorite person to know and to see.
I did not take any thing she told me lightly. She gave me love in a way that was tough but nurturing. She at my worst would look at me and tell me that I was special, beautiful and worth it.
Moving in with her in my teenage years was not an easy transition. I was far from home, yet in many ways I felt more at home than ever.
She showed me that no matter what, family came first. Everyone has their darkest hour, that’s the hour in which your family surrounds you with light.
Everything in life has a solid thread, invisible to the eye sometimes. That thread in which things are held together, my Grandmother, knowingly or not was that thread. She was the center of a family that was created to love each other. She was the common equation amongst us.
When she fell apart a lot of that unity fell apart too. Who do you go to when your matriarch is no longer in charge. As if we all needed to learn to come into our own graces.
I lost more than a person. I lost a part of myself. In that moment when I realized her mind was not coming back, I realized also that life progresses without us noticing. It feels like an instant change, yet in reality it was happening all along.
We take for granted those small moments, morning talks on her back porch, bike rides by the water, just having her completely… complete.
I wonder if she knew how leaving would effect us all, I doubt she ever knew how much hold she had on our lives.
The things she taught me about humanity are a part of me to this day. I would never abandon those I love. Yet she also taught me to try my hardest to respect myself and to hold my own chin up above water.
Sometimes we would sit together and watch thunderstorms, listening to the sounds and watching the lightning. She called these storms stunning. The way she watched them used to strike me, her thoughtful eyes fixed forward, a stoic look on her face. This is how she faced all storms in life. Head on, fixed on the bigger picture.
As a small child I would sneak into her room while she napped. I would put my head on her stomach and listen to her breathe, making sure she was still with me. The rhtym of her breathing would comfort me and make me smile.
The rhythm of her love, an unstoppable force that touched my life does this now. I may never again watch her chest rise and fall but her life does live on in us. In the smile of my daughters, in the strength I took from her. In the eyes of my son. Her love, her life is not over. Like a filmy memory I see her on the best of days and it’s what I hold her dear on the worst of them.
She used to say all the time “ I’m not long for this world honey”… not physically, mentally you were not Grandma, but your legacy, your love will last ages… something I will teach my own children and grandchildren. You carry on in me and in those who knew you for the beautiful person you were.