Note From The Writer: I originally wrote this 11 years ago. It was the week my Granny died. This week marked the 11th year since her death. I couldn’t think of what I wanted to say, which was annoying since talking about grief is “one of my things.”
Since I originally shared this essay, I’ve changed my website and removed the old blog. I knew there would be certain writings I’d like to revisit and add back to the new website.
This was one of them.
I decided to take a look at it and realized I couldn’t touch it. It was so pure and raw, and the reality of that loss when it happened. So here it is.
(This was written the day she died.)
I’ll never forget the way it felt the first time I saw my grandpa as an old man.
The moment I found out my granny was going into hospice, I was hit with an array of random thoughts and a deep sadness I can’t describe (which is extra frustrating as a writer).
I just kept thinking about how I didn’t have anything to wear to a funeral and how, at my great aunt’s funeral a few years ago, she told me my dress had too much cleavage, something I heard from her a lot in my adult life, along with “You left the bottom of your dress at home, didn't you,” (implying it was too short).
That was my granny, blunt as they come.
This was a trait that did not improve with age, her last few months with us, she shamelessly harassed the poor staff at her nursing home, making comments like, “I’ve never seen so much butt and hair,” referring to the big-haired, bottom-blessed nurses and aides.
I started thinking about the questions I never asked that she was too gone to answer now. I thought about what a conversation with the sassy young woman in this photo, who was probably around my age when it was taken, would be like. Now she was 86, less than 90 pounds, and hardly coherent; I’d never have that conversation.
I couldn’t help but think about how being at the office was torture, how all I wanted to do was crawl into my mom’s bed and watch Lifetime movies wi,th her and the next best choice was to cry my eyes out in my own bed and just try to wrap my head around something that we all logically understood but made no sense at all: death.
When I woke up this morning and checked my phone at 7:35 and saw a missed call from my mom at 3:03 a.m.and another from my sister at 7:25, I felt my heart sink. I quickly redialed my mom before getting out of bed or even turning on the light.
“Hey.”
“Hey, Lois." ( Lois is the nickname my mom and I use for each other. Inside joke.)
“What’s up?” I asked, still holding on to a small glimmer of hope, since she didn’t sound like she was crying, just tired.
I thought she would say there was another incident, that my grandmother had a scare but was fine, but then she said it….
I’d like to be able to tell you what exactly “it” was she said, but I honestly don’t remember the way she phrased it. Not even 10 hours have passed, but all I know is what she meant….my granny was gone.
My relationship with my grandmother wasn’t typical while I was growing up. My grandmother and grandfather weren’t just my grandparents; they were my parental reinforcements. After my mom and real dad separated, we moved to the country, where we lived with them for a while before renting a house down the street. I saw my grandparents almost every day for most of my childhood, and still saw them multiple times a week as a teenager. During my last semester of high school and last summer at home, I used their car to get around. Thank God for my grandmother! It wasn’t the dream ride a 17-year-old would hope for, but it was great just to not be walking.
It’s funny, I’m sitting here watching This Is Where I Leave You, post The Fault Of Our Stars and thinking wow this is a much more realistic depiction of life and my expectations for the next few days then The Fault In Our Stars…. on the plus side other than a weak moment at the beginning I’ve gone like 20 minutes without wanting to crawl up on a ball on the floor...which I have done today.
I imagine getting to my sister’s house tomorrow and just talking about the different things that have happened in the past 26 years that I had this wonderful and complex woman.
When I sat down to write about my granny, I could only think of one thing: “I’ll slap you blind”. My grandma NEVER hit any of us in the face, but the threat was enough to make us act right.
How ironic it was that she couldn’t eat that last year on her own, because she had had a very healthy appetite my whole life.
How even at the end she was feisty. In fact, I think the last thing I heard my granny say less than 2 weeks before her death was, “Get out of my face!”
Towards the end of her life, my granny could only hear out of one ear, and you had to get very close, and she just wanted to be left alone. It didn’t hurt my feelings; in fact, it made me laugh because that was her.
I remember leaving the nursing home that Sunday and having the very real realization that I gave her a one-sided hug and told her I loved her one last time. That it might, in fact, be the last time.
What we won’t talk about is the distinct and rare pain in all of our chests. This empty yet heavy feeling that even as we heal, she will always be missed.
Yesterday we laid to rest Alice Leola Bibles Johnson. I don’t know why I had this idea in my head that after the funeral this heaviness in my chest would go away because it hasn’t.
I won’t say it was a “beautiful service”; I hate when people say that. I will say she looked beautiful. She didn’t look like the sickly old woman I’d said goodbye to two weeks ago today; she looked like she had before her fall in the spring, before she stopped really eating anything but peppermints last year. In her new suit-and-salt and pepper wig, she looked like my granny.
As much as it hurts, I have a few things to be grateful for. I’m grateful she isn’t in pain anymore; I’m grateful that my mom and the rest of the family aren’t constantly holding their breath waiting for that dreaded phone call that did ultimately come on August 25th. I’m grateful that the 4 days I spent with my family planning the service and mourning led me to feel closer to my extended family than I probably ever have in my adult life and gave me a desire to spend more time communicating with and seeing them.
I’m grateful for the new stories I got to hear about my grandmother from my Mom and uncles that I hadn’t heard before.
I’m grateful for the desire the loss of her life has given me to really live my own.
I’m grateful for the perspective it’s given me on just how much I love my mom and how lucky I am to have her, and that she is the person my grandmother raised her to be.
There is no way to really end this, or to say goodbye.
I’ll think about her every time I have a really good piece of buttermilk cake, every time I read a romance novel or do a word search puzzle, any time I pick up a needle and thread to fix a piece of clothing the way she taught me, and countless other times.
So I won’t say goodbye; I’ll say, I love you, Granny.
I still miss this lady so much. What I probably didn’t expect back then was how much more I appreciate and love her since she has gone. As I’ve gotten older and learned more about the struggles she would have faced growing up when she did, as a black woman in the South, I can’t help but marvel at her strength.
I understand her better now that I have more life under my belt. That does bring a different kind of grief. A grief that she didn’t get to see the person I’ve become. The grief of not having conversations with her that wouldn’t have occurred to me until I lived more.
But that’s grief; it doesn’t end. It shifts, it changes, it ebbs, and it flows.