IN REMEMBRANCE
My grandma has passed away. My mom’s mother. Dealt an undesirable hand early on in life, she brushed it off as best she could, and went on to work hard, and proudly so. Known for slipping raw diced onion into anything she thought fit much to the chagrin of many, she’d coo “they’re just sooo goood,” in response, time and again.
TRUE, A MOST POWERFUL THING.
She made wonderful apple pie (onion-free), passed out handsewn pot holders as if candy and snored like a roaring bear at times. My dad always says she had the absolute biggest heart, and would give you the shirt off her back if necessary. Her closet was chock full of any number of items set to send home with visitors regularly. Her last few years on the planet made me heart sick, the demise of a life, and a mind. She did not go gentle into that good night, science says she should have passed in June subsisting on a few sips of water a day after a rapid decline over the course of a few weeks, too weak to move, pinned to her paltry bed in hospice care. Someone explain it to me. “The will to live, the will to live,” is all that’s been offered. True, a most powerful thing.
She could talk your ear off about absolutely nothing, provided a receiver was close by. No pudding, but here, a little proof. I’ve missed her for a while now, but this week brings with it the finality of it all. Looking through old photos of the interiors of their past homes- my grandparents- brings a wash of memories, as wall hangings and the occasional lamp, the color of a tablecloth and the texture of a couch bring to mind all the to-doings in years prior now long gone. I try smiling for it all having happened at all versus crying for it having had to end, as the saying suggests, but it’s difficult at times.