I knew you were gone before the confirmation came.
I knew you’d do me the favour but was so hesitant to ask.
I knew as your name washed over me that you had a hand in this.
Grandma
I wake from my dream, rattled, and feel you near. Your name washes over me and I feel you near. To my knowledge you are still with us, for I haven’t been told yet that you slipped away during the night.
The dream: I stand, on one side of a dirty glass pane. The sun shines through, obstructing my view of a little girl on the other side. I stand, feet firmly planted and twist my head every way imaginable to get a better view of the cloudy image of her. This is my dream, the one I cling to, the one I hope to return to, the one that you gave to me as you slipped into the unknown.
Thank you, Grandma, I say under my breath as I come to my senses. I lay in bed and try to slip back into sleep. It’s gone. I’m unsuccessful.
I resign to the fact that once a dream is over, there is no going back. I get up, get dressed, and begin my day: coffee, toast, teeth, hair in a top knot. I’m out the door before I know it to run errands, making a stop at my mama’s house.
By the time I arrive, I have shaken the dream free and when, a few hours later, I am sitting in my childhood kitchen, I don’t even notice the sadness in my own mother’s face. How did I not pick up on the fact that your world had just been ripped from you in the night? How did I not see that in your eyes, mama?
I start in on the dream. Tell my mama about the dirty glass, the little girl on the other side, I’m certain of two things: firstly, this little girl is mine and secondly, grandma had a hand in this.
I notice your tears and assume that they are happy tears for this is the first dream, I tell you, in which she’s ever come to me. I disclose that I have wanted to go up to the hospital to see grandma to ask her, as she lay on her deathbed, to do me a solid and send my baby through. I was trying to find the words to both acknowledge her impending death and my selfishness in it. How does one ask for this favour? I couldn’t find the way to do it, so I didn’t.
Tears stream down your face, mama, as you tell me that grandma is gone. Her soul left last night. You were with her; she was not alone. Then you tell me that you, my mama, asked her to do me that very solid as she slipped away. You leaned over her, telling her that you loved her, and, before she left, you asked her to send my baby through to me.
And, she followed through.
I often think about where we go, how it works, and who is there waiting for us. I can’t help but chuckle at the thought of you, Grandma, delaying the process while you complete just one errand. You scan the faces waiting for you; family, friends, and lovers all gone long before. You tell them to wait, finding the smallest one, wrapping your warm arms around her and ushering her back through to me.
And like a long line of women before me, you were selfless, even in death.
I feel you sometimes, Grandma.
This morning I feel you.
I feel you as I sit, type-typing away on my back deck.
You are missed, you are loved, you will never be forgotten.
Thank you, Grandma