That's her, almost four Christmases ago, the one on the far right with my kids. And for the record, she would have absolutely hated me telling all of you how old she was.
My grandmother died tonight at about 20 'til 8, shortly before I arrived in Chattanooga. I got word that this might happen this evening, but where I am and where she was are 2 hours and change apart, so I did what I could to get there. I got there "too late" for some people, but let's be clear; she hadn't really known who I was for a while, and so much of what made my grandmother really my grandmother had slipped away in the last six years. The main reason I needed to be there was to experience things for myself and say goodbye even if she left her body a little before I got to it. So I got to do that tonight, then turned around and came back home. It's important to me that I was there.
And for my kids. My kids will believe me when I say that I saw, and will tend to question what people tell me over the phone or other ways. Good kids - they're handling it well, and their mom told them before I got home when they were all wrapped in towels and warmth from recent showers. A good plan. A good mom.
My grandmother, when she was at her peak as I knew her, would keep up a running commentary of her activities - you'd hear a near-constant narrative of what was going on right now spliced in with some stream-of-consciousness from inside her head, all of it sharing space with the conversation you were having with her at the time. I never thought I would miss that, and it turns out that I was mistaken.
We will likely inter her ashes sometime over the next couple of days in a memory garden in Chattanooga right next to my granddad's, which have been there since 2004. Once the process of formal goodbyes is finished, the memory-sifting and proper mourning will begin, but for now, I'm content to have made the drive back-and-forth so near the end and then after it was all over.
Recent Comments