Joy Unconfined

It’s been on my mind a lot, lately.

I’ve been thinking of the period of time where I knew I was losing my grandmother.

It’s more difficult to think of it now than it was to live it then. It wasn’t a picnic then, but we were in the moment, living it, doing the best we could. We were distracted by surviving the sorrow and pain, bogged down in the details.

Now there is only hindsight. “If I’d only known…” “should have…” “could have”…

I miss her. I miss her almost every single day. There is always some facet of my life that brings to mind something she said, some advice she gave, or something she pointed out to broaden my perspective.

I wouldn’t be the same person if I had not had her in my life so much.

I’m desperately chasing the things I saw in her, and in her life, for myself.

But I keep missing them. Or ruining them.

If I could just find a way to experience the satisfaction she always made a point to get out of everything she had, I know I would be successful as a human.

She was remarkable.

This is why it’s so hard to revisit those last hours, days, weeks and months.

Loss of memory is a nasty, nasty thing. I can say “At least it wasn’t as prolonged as it is for some people”. And that’s true. Until close to the end, she still knew her grandchildren, and mostly remembered her great grandchildren, even if she forgot things like how to tie a shoe, or couldn’t remember simple procedures to accomplish the basics of caring for herself.

When it got to where she didn’t know where she was, who was with her, or would talk about things and people that weren’t there…

We were ready for her to go, perhaps more ready than she was. She was always a stubborn woman, and she knew how much her family, her “kids”, needed her. Or, at least, she thought we needed her that much. And we probably did. I know I still do.

So she didn’t want to go, and I think that’s why she was with us for so long. Even if she couldn’t remember WHY she had to stay, or who the people were that needed her, she just held on… but we wanted her to go, not for our sakes, but for her own. Her life was no longer pleasant, it wasn’t fulfilling, and she was denied even the smallest joys of existence. It was time for her to move forward and join the husband she had loved for so many years, and lived so very long without.

The day of her funeral I mourned for myself, and absolutely celebrated her.

Such morbid thoughts I’ve been having.

It doesn’t help that this time of year brings her so clearly to mind, with the strained sunlight, crisp air and honeyed palette of nature. She was such a vibrant fixture in my life during this season. Cotton being harvested, walnuts and almonds being shelled on the steps outside her back porch. Comfort food was back, too. Chicken and dumplings, roasts and gravy… “You put your coat on before you run on out there! It’s COLD outside, missy!”

It doesn’t help that I know someone I care about deals with watching the deterioration of a grandparent. I think of him daily, and worry for him, and hear nothing.

It doesn’t help that I’m flipping through channels and happen upon that horrible, horrible, sappy, painful film “The Notebook”. (The people who made that film, and the writer who wrote the story, should all be lined up and shot for making me hurt so much that I would cry. It’s unkind.)

It doesn’t help that the holiday season fast approaches, and I’ll be alone. I find myself wondering how she dealt with it. At least her solitude was thrust upon her with the death of my grandfather… she didn’t choose it, and wouldn’t have. She adored that man with every part of herself.

I’ve chosen this, in a way, and that seems to make it worse. WHY would anyone choose to give up that human connection during the holidays? After all, something is better than nothing, isn’t it? I mean, I may not have had that soul mate, that one great and final, all-consuming love that she had had… but I did have someone who loved me dearly.

I could say, “What would she have done in my shoes?” But I can’t really know. My shoes would never have fit her. She was never in this situation.

I never really GOT to see how she behaved within a relationship. I only had the photos of her gazing adoringly at her husband. I only had the wistful, longing, and very loving remembrances of him that she would share with me.

I never saw, really, how they interacted. I was very young when he died.

The only relationship I saw was that of my parents. And I wouldn’t recommend that ANYone model a relationship on that. It’s unhealthy, and isn’t right. They’re still together, but that’s about all I can say for it. I love my parents, but I don’t want any part of having a relationship like theirs.

So I miss Grandma, because I wish I could ask her. “What would you have done? What would you do?”

It doesn’t mean I would take her advice, but at least I would know, and I could have the comfort of her voice and her thoughts, sharing her opinion because she loves me.

I miss her.

I regret so much. (And I rarely regret anything. Ever. I make it a point to avoid regret, and to spurn it when it does come. But this…this I regret.) I regret not spending every possible minute with her, to feel her spirit, to enjoy her comforting, loving, unconditional, unjudgemental presence. I could only hope to be a fraction of that kind of serenity to other people.

God, I was so lucky to have her. She is the best woman I have ever known.

So I woke up this morning from a very vivid series of dreams.

In these dreams I was her, but myself. Myself AS her… or her as me… living a life that wasn’t her life, wasn’t with her people, but it had the things I remember that she had in her life; that sense of place, that sense of truth, that sense of confidence that she was where she belonged with the people who should be a part of her life. She lived honestly and simply, because she belonged there. She made her reality, and it was good to her.

I was her, she was me… “we” were in a life with a person that, well, when I look at him I can feel what those photos of Grandma looking at Grandpa feel like. It feels right, like a puzzle piece locking into place, like magnets clicking together. It echoes the adoration in her eyes, the confident smile on his lips, the sense of trust between two people.

I spent the early morning hours, today, living that life of belonging, of contentment, of love and happiness, in my dreams. It wasn’t perfect, by any means. It wasn’t bliss, in the sense of the heavenly, ethereal thing where nothing is average, or ordinary. It was all VERY ordinary, with people and places that were, in the dream, familiar and unremarkable… and that’s why I want to go back. It was ordinary, but so right. It felt like a good life.

I don’t think I have ever awakened with such a sense of longing and dismay that it wasn’t real.

So, I wish she were here, because I want to ask her, “How do I get that? How do I achieve that?”

I know what she would say.

“Just don’t you worry about it. If God means it for you, it will come to you. But you have to make sure you’re ready for it. Be yourself. Be honest. Be true. Be a good person. Love everyone, just like God does. You do your best. That’s all you can do. And while you’re doing your best, you enjoy what you do have, and be thankful for it.”

After all, God had given all that to her… and then taken away the center of it, yet she wasn’t bitter. She was still herself.

There’s a lesson there, I guess. Somewhere.

I’m still me. Or, at least, working on it. So… I’ll enjoy what I have. I AM thankful for it, moreso now that I’m in the center of a maelstrom of change and uncertainty.

So.

I will go through my days trying to identify the things for which I AM most thankful, and I will cherish them and care for them. All else will fall away. I can’t get distracted by the unimportant details.

Live honestly. It’s time. Time to integrate my many selves that are displayed to various people.

I miss you, Grandma. I don’t know if you’d be proud of me or not, but at least I can take the example you were and try to make my life better because of it. I want to be the complete woman that you were.

She’s in here somewhere.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 3rd, 2006 at 2:11 pm and is filed under miscellanea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.