And when Sister Laurie says "Amen"

We won't hear anything. The ten-car train will take that word.

That fledgling bird. 

One year ago my grandmother died and I’ve spent the past twelve months trying to figure out exactly what that means to me.

This is what I remember: sitting in the car. C buying cigarettes. My mom calling to tell me my grandmother was dying of lung cancer. She passed away three and a half months later. Still, some vital part of her disappeared when I heard the word pneumonectomy. No. I never heard the word pneumonectomy, that’s something I googled afterwards. After the rose garden/coffee shop/arcade/break down.  

What I did hear: cancer, radiology, surgery, terminal. I wondered about the lung she had left. Did it swell to fill her chest like carnival goldfish grow into their bowls? Or did she just feel hollow; maybe her heartbeat echoed like her chest was an empty cathedral. I couldn’t call her, I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t realize there were so many things left to say.

Three and a half months later in a California hotel room, it took me thirty minutes to listen to a voicemail from my father, while Lucy was downstairs or in the shower or standing right next to me but far away. I don’t remember, but I do remember knowing before I knew.

Let me back up. When you tell people somebody you know has died, they want to know if you were close. And we weren’t. Not anymore. I last saw my grandmother in 2010 the weekend I graduated college. I was sweating out too many rounds of beer pong, while designating a special corner of hell for the person who invented black graduation gowns. We talked about taking a trip together, New Zealand or Australia. Instead I used her graduation present to pay my rent the month everything changed.

I last spoke to my grandmother Christmas morning, 2011. I was driving to work because our conversations needed built in escape-routes. I’ve never been the best at silence. She asked me to visit soon. I asked for her address, told her I would write.

Our last interaction was via Facebook. That fact makes me sick with guilt.

Three nights ago, I had a poetry reading on the anniversary of my grandmother’s death. I’d like to say I wrote her a tribute poem but that would be a lie, because I try to write honestly. And honestly, I didn’t know Mary Taulbee well enough to memorialize her. I didn’t know the woman who backpacked through Tasmania, or the 911 dispatcher; the city VIP, or the woman whose favorite musical was Mama Mia. I don’t remember how she liked her eggs, or if she liked eggs.

My dad and grandma on the last day they spent together

What I do remember:

Fresh nectarines and summer vacation. Monterey Bay aquarium, petting the rays. Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Country music and cotton blouses. Counting pennies. Into the Wild, Heidi, White Fang. The smell of coffee beans and coco powder.  Ginger Ale on airplanes. Fresh mangoes and the sticky jungle heat of Nicaragua. Disneyworld, leaving the Orlando airport like walking into a sauna. Raspberry soda with a splash of cream.

After the funeral, I spent hours poring over the obituary, eulogy, collecting information about her. I wish my grandmother and I had more opportunities to know each other as human beings. I wish I’d known her as a mother/wife/widow/woman. In the end I miss the things we didn’t have more than the things we did. I’m mourning the stories I never heard, the experiences I never learned from. I’m grieving for the trips we never took, the late night phone calls I never felt compelled to make. Here’s what I know: despite the distance, losttime, and weight of our history I loved my grandmother, and she loved me.

That’s not an easy truth, but it’s something.

-b

[Note: as part of her trust, my grandmother founded a charity benefitting Appalachian-area orphans, the Fred & Mary Taulbee Charitable Foundation. There are plenty of volunteer and donation opportunities available.]