Give It Up For Dead

Over the course of the last 4 days things have been turned upside down for me. I was forced to confront a beloved grandmother's mortality, and was in reality, too much of a coward to really talk to her when I went to see her. My decision to go was grudging because I felt that everyone was trying to dictate to me what my last memory of her should be. I was frightened and grieved by the figure in the hospital bed--so different from the woman I knew as a child--that I thought there must be some mistake. The entire molecular and spiritual structure of her face is compromised by years of strokes and seizures, her inability to talk is simply eerie, and her level of cognition is a mystery, so I just felt pounded by grief and shame over my negligence of her.

See, what I remember is a woman who was a dish! She had sass, style, arrogant elegance. Well into her sixties she still wore tight jeans, pumps, and well tailored blouses. I still remember associating the smell of her cigarettes with warmth and love. I think it is the reason why every man I've ever seriously cared for is a smoker, or was at one time a smoker. Vestiges of the scent of unlit Benson & Hedges still comfort me. She liked cocktails, she told it like it was. You just didn't want to cross her... but that is because she had been so badly hurt by my grandfather. She made cutting remarks an art form, but if she loved you, it consumed her.

I remember being about 8 years old and sitting in her lap at some party. We were seated on the floor, just rocking together in time to our own rhythm. I was proud she and I shared that connection. That even though I did not know my father, that I had her and that she had me.