My husband?s grandmother was waiting for us as we pulled up to the car port of her senior living community.? Still pretty spry for her 90+ year old body she is always elegantly adorned in sharp contrast with the family matriarch who quietly lies dying in her home twenty minutes to the south.? Dressed in a vibrant purple blouse with white capris, her matching purse hung over the front of her walker as she quickly made her way to the car, seeming chipper and thankful for company and the opportunity to go on an outing.? As we drove away my eyes turned back to towards the funeral home across the street, cars filled the parking lot and people filed out.? I found it eerily symbolic of the reason for our trip.
As we drove the same road I had traveled just last week after June?s funeral, grandma told us stories from her youth, explaining that before her family moved into town she had to trim the lantern wicks every single day to keep them from smoking and soiling the house.? She described the way that she ran from room to room turning switches on and off and flushing the toilet when they moved into their home in the town that had electricity and indoor plumbing.? She reminisced about the covered wagon rides that served as the school bus in the olden days and the way they were so bumpy from the rocks in the dirt roads.?? She said that in the winter the bed of the wagon was lined with hay meant to insulate your feet from the frigid air while the wheels were replaced with? wooden skis allowing the wagon to glide along swiftly in the fallen snow.? She made meme giggle when she let out an uncharacteristic ?God Damn It? as she? described the ?school bus driver? and the way he?d swear at the kids and wen she told the story of how she and her siblings tipped over an outhouse one year as a Halloween prank, forfeiting their ability to celebrate it again for several years.? I enjoyed the drive, savoring each words of her stories, both for my children to hear, but also for the appreciation of the life and experiences she was willing to share.
We were headed to a family gathering for her daughter, my husband?s Aunt Bev who, several months ago was diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer.? The cancer has already spread to several other spots and she is scheduled for a surgery this week.? As we drove I wondered what it was like for this woman, who is approaching a century of life to be traveling to a gathering of love and support that really was much more likely a final good bye for her child.
As we approached the town and crossed over a marsh like part of the mountain river, my mind retraced the many times I?d traveled this route as a child with my parents to visit my own grandmother.?? Visiting this town is often a painful reminder of the absence of my parents and family in my own life and the reasons for that current void.?? While most days I can busy myself with my current life and focus on the good things that I have, the aching echoes of the past were in the forefront of my conscience, creating a feeling of tension and anxiety to trickle through my veins.? Memories flooded into me and I struggled to keep from screaming out in rage before arriving at the fire hall that was our destination.
?BINGO!?? we all yelled, instead of ?surprise? because Aunt Bev?s love of bingo made it the perfect decoy reason for her to enter hall where a crowd of several dozen people waited in eager anticipation for her arrival.?? The moment she entered the room her face turned crimson and a wave of emotion and tears spilled out of her as she realized her closest family and friends had gathered here for her.? I watched as her daughters struggled not to cry as they embraced her and sat across from her husband, who in his own gruff way, was undoubtedly touched by that moment, struggling with the awkwardness of trying to be stoic but yet knowing his wife was dying.? I had to fight back my own swell of emotions as? I watched as her mother embrace he in a large and uncharacteristically genuine hug, smiling, sharing her affection.? I wondered what Grandma was thinking and feeling knowing that could be one of the last chances she got to touch and hold her daughter.?? The moment was beautiful in its morbid poignancy.
I had never been at the fire hall before but I knew that some where on the walls hung some sort of reference to my own grandfather, Henry Smith.? Dying in the late 1950?s, I never got to meet him, but I?ve often heard stories that he was a kind and respectable man who perished while fighting a fire during the time he was the fire chief.? I struggle to explain why this felt so profound to me, except to say that my family heritage is so clouded by embarrassment and shame. Grandpa?s life and his death has always felt like the bright and shining bit of hope that I could some how rise above the shadows of the violence and madness that have been bequeathed to me.? I gradually made my way around the room scouring the plaques until I found the one that said ?Past Fire Chiefs? and there it was.? Engraved upon a simple tag? it? read ?Henry Smith: 1957-1959.??? A brief two years was all he had until his life had ended.? Then I made my way to a corner in the back of the room where there hung a 1957 photo with portraits of each fire man. ? It was not long before I found him because I knew what I was looking for, as the same portrait hangs on the wall of my mother?s home.? I stood and stared at it for a few moments, trying to figure out what emotion I was feeling when I realized that I have his nose.?? Perhaps the significance of the realization would be more apparent if I shared the fact that my husband has often said that the first thing he noticed about me when we met decades ago, was my ?cute little nose that just barely stuck out beneath my ski goggles.?? My husband who spent the entire drive to the fire hall grimacing in pain, hardly speaking a word, and radiating his hurt and anger as he struggled to contain his emotions all present because of things I?ve done.
I felt? and feel so alone as my brain struggles to comprehend all the emotions that swirled around and in me yesterday.? I was reminded of my grief for June as I drove the same road that I had after her funeral the week before for the purpose of greeting an Aunt who is dying of cancer, while transporting her mother, knowing the woman may never see her child again, while desperately wanting my children to remember fondly their interactions with their Great Grandmother before she dies herself because I never had a chance like that because my childhood was traumatic and abusive , while watching as my husband struggle with some intense emotional pain that is entirely my fault, while driving to my mother?s home town, where I was reminded of the fact that I?ve been estranged from my family for several months because of their insanity and abuse which leaves me with a constant void that just simply always aches,? to enter a fire hall where a picture of my grandfather, who I never met, and who I?ve always thought was my only link to sanity, hung on the wall when I realize that I look like him.
I so badly wanted to reach out to my grandfather, to find some shred of hope and dignity to cherish, but grasping for it felt like I needed to reach across a blazing fire and that there was no way to reach it without getting burnt.?? I feel so desperate for some sort of connection to fill the void within me for the days where the ache of absence of my family hurts more than the damage from their madness. I am just confused by all of this and am frozen in this moment because of the complexity of this.
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