Goodbye, Sister

November 08, 2006 | Category: Family, It's a Trip

This is Wemouth Cemetery. The end of that row is where they laid my grandmother's body to rest.

Of course, she isn't really there.

Grandma was, well, my Grandma. She didn't back cookies, couldn't cook worth a damn, argued politics with a keen passion, played Gin like a cardshark, and was the first person to argue my viewpoints with me.

When Bush was finally declared the winner of the Florida election and thus, President, she called me up chuckling - "Your guy never had a chance down here."

She called me 'sister' towards the end, as a form of endearment. Shaking her keys at me when she was impatient for us to be off, as I would pack up my purse and tell her to 'shh'. Her silver curls and grinning eyes trying to look all bossy and imperious.

Ha.

Of all the relatives around my childhood, she's the one I stayed in a conversation with throughout my life. The one I got to know, and the one I let know me.

We hardly agreed on much - politics, decorating, even marriage. But we got each other. And we liked to spend our Sunday nights arguing on the phone about foreign policy and CSI plots.

When my cat fell out the window of the apratment back in my poor, poor days. He had a really broken leg. A few days later, I got a check from her for $500 - completely unasked for. I called her up, in confusion.

"For the vet bills, dear."

When my cat died a few days later, I called her again. I was unable to say anything, I was so sad.

"Elizabeth, is that you?" she guessed. "Oh, he died, didn't he...?"

Some years back, I went on a hunt for her gravestone. I had to see it.

I thought I was fine, you know. As we strolled up and down the rows looking for her name - my name.

And then we found it.

I almost broke into a million pieces. Like I'd decided she wasn't really dead until then. Until I traced her name, my name, in the stone.

Bear and CD and I held each other for a long time as I cried.

Then Bear found 3 beautiful stones. We placed them on the grave she shares with my grandfather, and remembered her. We prayed for her. We missed her.

Since she died, I've been trying to get to Florida, to her condo.

From there from the time I was a kid, I would visit her (and Grandfather, while he lived) each winter. She and I that would hang out at Denny's (Grandma loved her some Early Bird Special on a Senior Discount) and chatter away the late afternoon. Then we'd walk the beach at sunset. Watch the night sky for stars.

My father and his brother kept the condo. Got a dumpster and cleared it out. Now they rent it out for 6 months each year - Dec to May.

Since she passed, it became something of a compulsion, to walk that stretch of beach again. To listen to those waves.

This year, my father relented to a time when we could go down to the condo. The week of November 13. Yes, my birthday. Even sent us the keys.

Our bookkeeper could be heard shouting all the way from Canada. That we'd have to use a credit card. That we can't really afford this. Really.

The last 2 weeks, I've been so sick. Coughing for air. And hanging on for this day.

On Friday, I have to be well enough to go, I would tell myself. Even if I have to pack dirty clothes, and travel with bed head. Even if I cough my way across country.

Last year? Paris.

This year? Florida.

Warmth. And salty breezes. Palm trees, with their long giraffe-like trunks. Pastels and long sunsets. And the memory of my grandmother's laugh on the sea.

I've shed tears into the ground of her death. Her 'no more'.

Today I fly to where her life was.

To be warm, to smile, maybe to cry. To relax, unwind, and be open. Maybe, to find a little healing.

In more ways than one.

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