Loss
How was I to know that things would turn out the way they did?
Sometimes we can predict; sometimes we cannot. I was eleven when my Grandma died, suddenly, without warning. I was devastated. My siblings also grieved. No more weekends with Grandma.
No more of her kindness and love. No more of her dinner table side splitting laughter. In an instant, my life forever changed.
I had been to her home the weekend before. She was herself in every way. Grandma liked having us over, and we loved going. Her presence in our lives was like a balm. Grandma’s eyes twinkled. Her skin was wrinkled. Her hands were toughened by years of labor. Grandma love me with all her heart. I could be myself with her.
My mother died when I was a year old. So loss was not new to me. Grandma held the memory of my mother for me. So her departure left me bereft on multiple levels. As with my mother’s death, Grandma’s death changed my life completely. Weekends would be spent doing chores at home now; the family pictures were tucked away in a box out of sight now, and the love the way she gave it was no longer to be found.
I want to talk about how loss can really change the tenor of life. Grandma’s love was unconditional. She was forgiving. She worked hard without demanding that we did. She let us be children. She read to us constantly. She told us about college and let us know that some day we would go there. Grandma’s house had flowers, lots of them: daisies, roses, hydrangeas, pelargoniums, sweet alyssum. Grandma let us pick the daisies, dissect them, and sprinkle the path with their petals. She took us on walks in the garden and let us feed the birds. Her house was full of interesting things, often from faraway lands that her friends had visited. She inspired our imaginations. Her loss left a big hole in our lives. The sweet, loving tenor was not to be found.
Grandma had a blue vase, a ginger jar her friend had sent her from the far east. She had a set of bells that came from Tibet; a wooden mallet accompanied the set which we used to make the sound. There was a painting of quail beneath a pine in the snow. Grandma was quite partial to it. There was another, smaller painting of a Chinese junk fishing by moonlight. There was a mantle clock that Grandma wound each week. There were cupboards full of crystal and fine china that appeared every Sunday afternoon on her dinner table when our parents came to pick us up. There were exotic rugs full of foliage, flowers, and the exotic plumage of large birds in rich yet subdued tones. The beautiful things in Grandma’s house wound themselves around our memories of her. So did the music she played, the classics, Chopin, Liszt, Handel, Gershwin. These were things that came home with us after Grandma died. Her treasures became my treasures, a way of keeping her memory alive.
When a loved one passes, it is our memories that remain. If those memories are good, they keep us warm at night and fill our days again and again. If the memories are poor, they niggle at us again and again until we make peace with them. Either way those memories punctuate our days, months, and years. The depth of the memories changes the flavor of our lives.
Loss leaves a raw spot inside. It needs time to heal. Eventually we try to integrate our memories in a new way, at a new level. Grandma kept my memories of my mother alive long enough for me to know they were there. My mother’s pictures decorated Grandma’s house. She spoke about my mother. She gave us a ball gown my mother had worn so we could play dress up. She let us play in the garden where she and my mother often had tea parties.
Grandma’s life was full of mystery. She came from a place called Nova Scotia, and her family moved to Boston. Eventually they all came west to California. Initially she lived in Marysville, then moved to Berkeley. Places like Nova Scotia, Boston, and Marysville were mysterious to me. Grandma married late and had her only child quite late in life. What she had done before that was a mystery to me. When I was young, I did not think to ask. Loss often leaves us with mysteries.
With loss, the soul as well as the heart are learning about grief, how to navigate it, how to get through it. We are left with memories to integrate into our lives. We are left with questions that may never be answered. The soul learns that life changes and people do not stay forever. The soul learns ways of dealing with grief. The soul learns the brevity of life.
Grief was Grandma’s daily companion. She lost my mother. Grandma expressed her grief through her consummate care of her grandchildren. Her recipe was to work hard to help her grandchildren live life, be loved, to giggle and laugh uproariously, to be children. Grandma helped herself as she helped us.
Regardless of what she may have been feeling inside, Grandma presented an even demeanor. She knew when to give hugs and when to let us just play. She was generally quite unruffled by the events of the day. Grandma was unflappable. She was quite extraordinary. When one loses such a person, the loss is profound. The loss of Grandma was the second profound loss I experienced in my young life.
