Read the full story, chapter by chapter here.
Some names and events have been changed to protect the identity of certain individuals.
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Chapter Twenty-One
My Heart Will Go On
Chapter Twenty-One
My Heart Will Go On
We stayed up all morning. Tradition. When someone in the family dies, the family copes first by crying and then by laughing. We need distractions. We need to remember good moments. Funny moments. We take moments to embarrass one another, reveal secrets about ourselves and each other in order to take our mind off of things. Oh the secrets that have been revealed.
We talked about Grandma and all the silly things she did. We talked about her cooking. How angry she would get when we'd drag her on the big rides at Universal Studios and Disneyland. We talked about the one time we tricked her into going on a white water rafting ride, three times in a row. We talked about how she could never watch a Walter Mathau movie without laughing so hard she'd barely make it to the restroom. We talked about how she would steal salt and pepper shakers from restaurants and would always bring her 'big' purse to the buffets.
We talked. And talked.
In the kitchen I sat with my older sister, my cousins and their spouses.
In the dining room sat the aunts and uncles.
Two generations.
The third generation, most infants, slept in the front bedroom.
By the time the sun rose, we stopped laughing. It wasn't funny anymore. There weren't enough stories to keep us smiling. We had to go make final arrangements now. We had to see her.
Paula, Debbie, Tiffany and I were the ones to walk in the room where Grandma was. Where her body was. Paula cried as she approached her, brushing her fingers through her hair. That same hair that every six months she would perm for her. Debbie kept her pain silent. She was like me. She had to be strong for everyone else. Tiffany crumbled in a chair beside the bed.
I didn't make it that far.
I don't remember my knees giving out. But the sudden realization that she was in fact, truly gone, overwhelmed me, and I crashed to the floor. I screamed in anger, fury. Not at God for taking her, but at myself for not treating her better. Anger at anyone who ever looked at her strangely because she walked with a limp, because her smile was crooked, or because she spoke jibberish. I sent my fist into the wall beside me. Debbie had to drag me out of the room. The two of us came to terms over what we felt.
We had to be strong for everyone else.
"I'll use June," I said. "Every year in June, I give myself time to be sad and angry over Mom's death." I told her. "I can do it then for Grandma too." I said, promising not to attack anyone in the house when we got home.
"My knees hurt," I moaned looking down at the bruises already beginning to form.
"Ya think?" Debbie laughed and hugged me close to her.
Only two days passed before we were all in Utah, familiar sights. The funeral home that took care of Mom and Kathy now took care of Grandma. But people weren't as shocked as they had been when my Mom died. She was only twenty-one. They weren't as angry as they were when Kathy died. Her death was suspicious. No, we had been prepared for this. Terribly prepared.
The funeral home offered to record the funeral on tape. If you listen to it now, you can hear the massive amount of people that showed up. People I didn't even know. Old friends, long distant relatives I hadn't seen in over ten years. Even in death she united people. I would have to work hard to live up to her legacy.
On the tape you can hear Debbie's Pastor from Church talk about stories we told him the night before. You can hear Paula give the eulogy of Grandma's life. Too few words for the type of impact she left on the world. She left behind a husband, 6 children, 18 grandchildren, 12 great grandchildren and counting. She followed two daughters, her parents and her first husband in death.
She would miss the births of at least 2 more grandchildren, 10 more great grandchildren, and 4 great-great grandchildren in only ten years that followed her death. And she would miss 6 weddings including that of the granddaughter who loved her the most.
On the tape you can hear my cousin Christine's husband playing his guitar, and my Grandmother's sister Irene singing a song.
You can hear a loud thud in the middle of a talk, when Mitzi's son banged his head on the pew and then began screaming. You can hear the bits of quieted sympathetic laughter that followed.
You can hear me singing . . .singing her favourite song.
"I love you Grandma," I said through tears, finally breaking at the end of the song. "And you'll always be in my heart."
Tiffany gave a closing prayer, crying the whole time. Later she confessed that she was terrified that she would get so emotional that she'd accidentally bless the food in her prayer when there was no food to bless.
We arrived at the cemetery and I stepped out onto familiar ground. Ground that I spent many days of my childhood sitting upon. A large rock overlooks the headstones of our family members. I used to sit on that stone when I was a little girl, watching as my Grandmother and aunt would place flowers on my mothers grave. Then it would be my turn, and I would go and sit beside her headstone.
"You can talk to her, you know." They would tell me.
But I talked to her all the time. I didn't need to be here to do it.
The large casket rested in between two other headstones. One belonging to my aunt Kathy, and the other to my Mom.
A memory, I will never forget.
When we got back home to New Mexico, I moved into Grandma's old room. Paula didn't throw any of her things out, but we changed it rather swiftly. Our own way of moving on. Avoiding the pain. The second I could sit down and think straight, I picked up the phone and called Matt.
"Come over."
He barely made it up the driveway before I launched myself into his arms. He held me tightly, afraid I could break at any moment. Matt had never dealt with death like I had. He knew my past. Knew everything I had been through, but to see it first hand was something different.
And he could see it.
A piece of me was gone.
"Are you okay?" He asked me, still not letting go.
"Promise me we'll be together forever." I begged him. I couldn't lose anyone else ever again. My heart wouldn't survive it.
"I promise."
3 comments:
Keep writing. Seriously, I look forward to reading your stories now more then anything!
Jia, you seriously need to put this story into book form.
First of all, I agree with Kristin, you should put this into book form.
Secondly, you brought me back. When my grandfather died, I was pregnant and I ended up in the hospital with REALLY high blood pressure. Everyone was acting like nothing had happened, they weren't even talking about Grandpa, and I saw my grandma sitting in the corner not speaking. It broke my heart.
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