/ Nonfiction /
*for Grandma Mac
A month after Grandma died, her voice visited me for the first time.
She audibly appeared while I cleaned, went on a walk, drove to work. She arrived—always unannounced—and always a welcome surprise. In little snippets, she spoke to me.
“I wish I could tell you all I know now,” she said at the beginning. “You see your funeral and it’s better than you think, because you feel it too. You feel all the grief and sadness and regret and longing. And it’s all equal, because it’s all love.”
I imagined her taking a sip of hazelnut coffee with PGA golf muted on the TV beside her. She’d smooth out the wrinkles in the green tablecloth, then curl her fingers toward her palm and examine her cuticles. The loose stack of gold, braided bracelets would tinkle quietly on her wrist. The lake was deep blue, a glistening sheen out the window, and refracted the glittering sun that peeked through cedar leaves.
“You remember all your days, right there, in one big moment while everyone cries and blows their noses, singing hymns,” she said. “For me, I felt the warmth of childhood summer days. I would shove flat popsicle sticks in the sandbox, then look up at fluffy clouds passing by. Leaning back, I’d trace the cumulus silver linings with my fingertips then swoop my hand down my legs, searching like antennae just to feel skin and sky.”
When I was alone, my mind wandered to random fragments of her house: her painting of Secretariat, her (always stocked) cut glass bowl of colorful M&Ms, and her record collection (Elvis, Glen Campbell, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams). I remembered her menagerie of old perfume bottles from Avon, Shalimar, and Chanel. The plastic and glass Avon bottles all doubled as little figurines: women in bonnets, a cat with a paper fan, a lush bouquet. She kept them neatly displayed on a mirror topped platter on her bathroom counter, the tiles underneath stained from years of cigarette smoke. She’d only smoke outside or in her bathroom before she finally quit in the 1990s.
I heard her say: “I carved my name in the trunk of that dogwood tree the day it bloomed. By the time I understood how resilient I was, it was too late. I had grit, but my physical strength was gone. Those dogwood blooms didn’t last—they never do—but that etching of my name remained. Durable and true, it certainly outlasted me. My body couldn’t catch up because I got too old—and too sad. I missed everyone so damn much. Everyone who went before me. It’s such an injustice and a blessing—this life. We get to experience such love, but on the back end, such pain.”
This ache in her galvanized an ache in me. It resides in me now, a dull throb at the base of my chest, the down-tip of my heart, and makes it hard to breathe when I miss her.
One night she said, “There’s no sympathy for the old.” I had almost drifted off to sleep, but I opened my eyes and sat up. Was she facetious or serious? Or perhaps a mixture of both: melancholic resignation? “Anyone who can understand us is already dead.”
I thought of Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin in Beetlejuice, confused and in denial about their own deaths.
But Grandma knew she was dead. And I knew it, too.
Was this disembodied voice just the part of her that lived on in me?
* * *
[I smell peonies (stingy and sweet) and am reminded she was ready to go.]
She sounded content and for that, I was thankful. She had trouble finding peace after Grandpa died six years before her. It felt like he’d been taken from us. But Grandma, she left of her own accord.
Grandma spoke again: “I wish I could tell you that we don’t get the credit we deserve. New generations rise up and tell us we haven’t made enough progress. Any progress we made is subsumed, forgotten. It becomes the ‘status quo’ even though we fought for it. We become irrelevant—like a coat or shoe in the back of the closet. Something you once needed, but now you don’t.” She sighed. “Only the dead truly understand the old.”
There’s a particular discomfort that breeds on your skin in warm, direct sunlight. It can happen imperceptibly, like a lobster in water coming to a boil. It’s gradual, tepid at first, then there’s a gurgle, and next—rhythmic bubbling. When it hits and you become too hot in the sun, it’s hard to remember when the glow felt soothing and cozy—maybe just a nanosecond before.
That’s how my grief hits.
One moment you’re basking in a memory then suddenly, you’re boiling over.
* * *
If heaven offers any omniscience, she saw us going through her stuff.
After Grandma died, my family and I worked like carpenter ants, following pheromone memories and piles of books, rosy-cheeked China dolls and plates, clothes. Sorting through my grandparents’ house was a Matrushka doll of loss: anguish stacked in sadness stacked in love.
We found a letter my grandma sent to her aunt and uncle in Missouri when she lived in Ethiopia. It was dated January 2, 1961, typewritten on the back of lined, yellowed notebook paper. It smelled dusty. The letter had traveled from Ethiopia to her family in Kansas City and somehow made its way back into her possession, presumably after her aunt and uncle died, only to sit, thin and weathered, at the bottom of a cedar chest for decades.
To later be discovered by us—
Dearest Edith, Chet, and the rest of the Gang:
I thought I would get this letter written before now, but no mail has gone out, so this should go out today, at least I hope so. I wrote in my last letter I would write a long letter and let you know all that happened with this small revolution.
On Wednesday December 14th, we had no phones, no planes could go out and come in, everything quiet. The rebel forces had taken over the local radio station, and starting at noon on the 14th they started broadcasting that the Bodyguard (Haile Selassie’s elite guard) had taken over all offices and that the Army and Air Force were together with them in the takeover. All quiet Wednesday night, then on Thursday afternoon at 2:30 all hell broke loose.
The Army and Air Force started fighting the rebel forces. The Bodyguard consists of approximately 3,000 troops. They had artillery batteries set up and started bombing the Bodyguard and some police stations that went with the Bodyguard. The firing kept up all Thursday, through Friday night. Also some heavy firing on Saturday. We finally got telephones and electricity on Saturday night late.
Needless to say, it was quite hectic.
We all stayed in our compounds from Wednesday morning on. I didn’t go out of the compound until the 20th. The school children were brought home the morning of the 14th when we realized what was going on. There was heavy fighting all over the city and it is estimated that 2,000 soldiers, Bodyguard and civilians were killed.
No Americans were hurt. Some houses took ricochets but we were not involved so they tried on both sides not to let anything happen to us. They hung the traitors on the spot or massacred them as they caught them. We saw the scaffolds as late as the 26th. It was pretty grim and there was absolutely nothing we could do, but sit it out.
[The conflict wasn’t even theirs.]
The only way in and out of here is by air. And no planes going either way. All roads leading to and from here were blocked. And of course we couldn’t get any news without electricity. It was pretty frightening to know we were so isolated.
I just thank God, cause He was the only one that looked out for us. The Americans are scattered all over the city and the American Embassy could not begin to hold all of us there. We were really better off to be in our own compounds. We had people stay with us as they could not get to their compounds due to artillery firing. No houses were damaged other than a few windows broken from the concussion and stray shells, but as Mac says it’s the strays that kill you.
There is nothing on any dependents going home. If they say we can go you can bet we will. Even though things are quiet and all hostilities have ceased, it’s like sitting on a powder keg. Mac stayed up three nights watching the firing as we’re in a crossfire, and had either side decided to move, we would have had to move out quick. But we were just damn lucky.
Things are seemingly back to normal. But it’s still no good. Mac leaves tomorrow for Paris for 10 days, I hate like hell to be here. There isn’t a thing that we can do. I just hope everything stays status quo until we leave here in July.
[She just wanted to go home.]
Even with all the fighting and shooting we still managed to have a nice Christmas and New Year. The children went back to school today and they needed to go and get back to doing something. It was as hard on the kids as adults because it is really quite terrifying not knowing what is going to happen.
We have checked on the new cars, and guess we will get a Pontiac Bonneville 4 door Vista. We will get it in Portland where we got our 57. It will cost us about 3,300. Mac says we’ll drive it for 10 years!
[My grandma famously only ever received one traffic ticket her entire life and it was for a $1 parking violation in this car.]
Mother and Daddy wrote you had called them, and bless their hearts, guess they were about out of their minds with worry, and you must know we were more worried about what news you all got than we were about ourselves. They got our first letter on the 24th and said it was the best Christmas present they could have received.
I wish I could leave now, but the way things are we Americans mustn’t act like cowards and turn tail and run. Well let me tell you something—I am a coward. It’s amazing how you can hold together when you have to. Of course, Mac is real proud of me cause I didn’t go to pieces like so many women did. But I had to look after the boys and still try to keep the house going. It was better to try and not get too upset, cause even Tom as little as he is knew something was wrong. We told him they were shooting chicken hawks! And we kept our 32 and shotgun loaded.
[Perhaps this was where it originated - the genetic birth and replication of our familial anxiety. And maybe our bravery, too. Flip sides of one coin.]
Well, this isn’t long, but I tried to write all I could think of about this mess. Will write another letter in a day or two. What was the deal with Willard and Donna? Did you save any clipping from the paper about this deal here? Sure would like to see them if you did. We haven’t read any stateside news concerning this.
Happy New Year to All.
All our love,
God willing we’ll see you in July,
Mac, Shirley, John, Tom
[Her honesty was her true courage.]
* * *
(Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.)
Were we the ones walking through the valley of the shadow of death? Or was it Grandma? Was she walking somewhere? Anywhere?
Everywhere?
When I couldn’t hear her, I tried to retrieve her voice on demand.
“What do you think, Grandma? What would you do? What humor would you find in this?”
* * *
“Worry is like waking up when you’re still asleep.” There’s her voice again. “You’re not fully awake.” She moved her hand in a circular motion from the wrist, with her fingers together. “Worry is trying to remember the future. You can’t do that. But if you forget—forget anything—if anything slips between the cracks of memory—do you even exist?” She sounded urgent. “Because what is the meaning of existence if not to remember the past while you’re in the present? To remember who you are, where you came from, and where you’re going.”
Death gave perspective.
She reflected on the undeveloped film reel of my own life and said, “I wish I could tell you how important the mundane truly is: remember that gift shop in Alaska on that rainy summer day? Remember. We were tourists. There was mud and your dad found a green Gap sweatshirt, deserted on a bench. It’s small moments like that, sweetie. Moments that make a life. Browsing burled wood shelves lined with kitsch. Remember how expansive you were and are. You can hold so much.” [I feel her tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.]
This embodied moment reminded me that eventually my own body would give out and I’d join her in death.
[I can almost see her this time.] “I wish I could tell you all I know now,” she said.
“But you are telling me,” I replied. “I can hear you. I’m listening.”
“Life was captured in that moment. American trinkets and hidden surprises.” I felt her gaze and heard—“Keep your eyes open. Keep looking, keep seeing.”