I still have a bottle of her perfume. I snuck it away when I was cleaning out her house. The first time I breathed it in it was like a punch to the gut because her presence overwhelmed me in a single inhale. That was 14 years ago and that bottle has moved with me and survived every bathroom clean-out since.
In the early days she was my shadow and her memory appeared
around every corner in my mind. As the
years passed she slipped away only to return for occasional visits. Now though, I am living in her home, just me
and the kids. And all of the sudden, my
grandmother has slipped right back in and she colors my thoughts at least once
a day. I look outside and I see her
hanging out clothes on the line, I walk into her used-to-be bedroom and
remember the exact dimensions of her furniture, I look outside and think about
how I would wait and wait to see her car come over the top of the hill.
I think about my kids and my desire that they would have
known her makes me ache. I’m sure she’d
leave candy on their pillowcases and she’d make them all their favorite meals. She would hold their little hands while
riding next to them in the back seat of the car and she would stroke their hair
and murmur her love over them. She would
let them stay up past their bedtime and she would welcome them crawling into
her bed early in the morning to talk about the day. She would be their one constant, their safe
place, their biggest champion. Just like
she was for me.
I was
talking on the only phone in the bottom stairwell of my dorm at Westminster in
July of 2000 when my mom asked if I was sitting down. Then she tried the best she could to explain
what leukemia meant and how the diagnosis had all happened so fast. It had only been weeks before that I had been
in her home, sharing dinner and talking about my upcoming study abroad trip. She had mentioned that she was tired. How does tired turn into leukemia in just a
few weeks? I came home from London and
held her hand during lucid moments and moments where it was just me pouring my
heart out to her, begging her to stay and then finally telling her goodbye,
that she was free to go. And so she did. She left on September 24. At her funeral we sang Precious Memories. “Precious
memories, how they linger. How they ever
flood my soul. In the stillness, of the
midnight, precious, sacred scenes unfold.”
Tonight I take out her perfume and I drink deep – I know it’s in vain, but for just a moment, if I close my eyes, it’s like my grandmother’s right here with me. I walk into the kid’s room and I look at them asleep in their beds. My heart wells up with a fierce and tender love for them. A love that makes me go weak in the knees. And then I realize that I have been loved in just.the.same.way. And gratefulness floods my soul, for to have been loved like that must be one of life’s most precious, sacred gifts.
