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Grandma
My grandmother died four years ago. I remember sitting and holding her hand. She couldn't open her eyes. She didn't have the strength. I remember my father crying, which I hadn't ever seen before. I locked away my emotions in the back of my mind, and I closed myself off to everything I was feeling. I knew that if I allowed myself to feel anything, it would tear me up inside and I had to do things, like work and pay bills. I closed myself, contained the sadness and shoved it into the back of my mind where I wouldn't have to look at it. She wouldn't have wanted me to be sad. She was too proud for that. She loved us, all of us, and the last thing she would have wanted would be for any of us to morn. Still, when I went home and I turned off my things and I laid myself down, I didn't cry. As she was lowered into the grave, I didn't shed a tear, but I remember that gray sky as though I am still under it, even now. I never understood why the memory sticks out to me, why it follows in my footsteps and beckons me at night, to look. I didn't understand, so I ignored it. I thought maybe she was haunting me and I begged her to stop. Maybe she is. I think today it hit me, though, just why out of every thing I've ever done, her death shines like a beacon int he dark. When her hand turned cold, and my aunts broke out in tears and my father lowered his head and my sister pulled me out of the room, I stopped. Oh, I was alive, still, but something in my heart was done. I couldn't feel. I couldn't allow it. Because the moment I did, I would break down. She was too free of a spirit to want to be in a nursing home, but she couldn't even remember my father's name. She did exactly what she wanted with her life, and never regretted a thing. She was such a vibrant thing, and to see that light die broke part of me. I didn't recognize it, not consciously. I protected myself. I stopped. Since then, I have accomplished so many things. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I got published. I fell in and out of love, I even got married for a second time. There WERE feelings in that time, I know there were. Because I felt those loves, I felt the friendships I had, I felt the world turning beneath my feet and the sun on my skin, but most of me was locked away. I didn't even realize what I was doing, but looking back it's so clear. And during all that time, I could still see her face and hear her voice. I renounced my faith when I moved away from my home town. I pushed god out of my life. No one tells you that you can come back from that. I was certain that if there was a god, he wanted nothing to do with me. No one tells you that sometimes that little speck of hope within you sometimes goes out. No one tells you that it's okay to run away. No one tells you when you stop feeling, because no one knows. It isn't up to someone else to say: hey, why are you ignoring these really important things in your heart? The truth is a lot harsher than those 30 minute very special episodes of old 90's sitcoms where everything works out in the end. The truth is, unless you do something, nothing will happen. YOU have to be the one that tries to do the right thing. YOU are the thing that saves you. No one else will do that. You couldn't stop someone you loved from dying. And someday, you're going to be in that bed, hooked up to buzzing machines. What you need to understand is that those awful broken things you feel in your heart aren't actually broken. You are not made of glass. You're made of stardust and chemicals and electric impulses. As far as any of us know, we only get one crazy trip on this planet. and the thing is, it isn't going to be "normal". It isn't always going to feel good. Sometimes, you'll end up so drunk that you're puking pizza into a stranger's toilet at 3am. other times, you'll have a warm cup of tea and sit on your couch and things won't feel so bad. and then there will be that one night where you're all alone and something in the kitchen falls to the floor. you'll get up and you'll think it was a spoon or something. but when you go into the kitchen, you won't see anything. everything will be just fine. but for some reason, it'll hurt. because for some weird reason you were certain that when you turned the light on, your grandma would be sitting at your table. for four years you ignored every thought like that because you renounced your faith, because you did shitty things and you hurt people, but when you heard that sound you suddenly realized that if she could see you, she wouldn't want to be angry or ashamed. she'd want to hug you and ask for all the dirt on your ex husbands, and say something like: imagine being a lesbian in the sixties! then out of no where, while you're standing in your kitchen, you realize something. You still believe in god. you probably never stopped. it just took a metric ******** ton of bullshit to guide you back to where you needed to be. your cat cuddles your foot and meows, because he knows you're not okay, but he doesn't know how to help. you give him a treat. you go to bed alone. you smell incense even though none is burning, and you secretly thank your grandma, even though she's not there. and you aren't okay. but at the same time, you're better than you've been in a long time.
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