My Grandma

I remember her covering her face whenever she laughed, her tiny puppet mouth turning up at the corners and her eyes lighting up like stars. Those were the only moments her forehead didn't furrow with concern, as she was always so terribly worried about everyone she loved. My grandma's main priority was making sure everyone around her was always okay, just okay. Please be okay, she'd insist. She scratched her elbows and never allowed herself more than a sliver of pie and the shorter she got the more I remember her arm wrapping around my waist to hug me close and tell me she loved me. I can still feel her gentle grip around my sides, and her soft skin against mine.

I was my grandma's favourite person in the entire world, though it's impossible to prove that title as it's the claim of every child, grandchild, and great-grandchild she had. She would listen intently to any story you were willing to tell, her breathing strained and her eyebrows endlessly worried about whether the ending of your story would turn out okay. Once, when I was sick at home with the flu, she showed up at our door with an antique tin box filled with treasures she'd found from her apartment, and a little pink patchwork quilt she'd made from scraps, just to make sure I felt loved and important, and to speed my recovery. Her gentle, unassuming presence resonated everywhere she went, and she had a calming effect on any space, and any infant. I never had to think twice about handing her a baby, even as she grew smaller and weaker in her final days. Her arms were always outstretched, ready to receive my boys, even that day when my rambunctious three-year-old ran toward her at the foot of the stairs. He almost knocked her completely over but she only laughed and hugged him closer still. She played catch with a ball with him on the floor only a few months ago. She gave him change to put in the fireman's boot at the parade in July. She made me Lipton soup when I was sick on her couch, and she taught me how to dip just about anything in coffee.

My beautiful grandma passed away a little over a week ago. It was peaceful and quiet, and she was found sleeping next to her Reader's Digest with her reading glasses on. I was stunned to hear the news, and didn't begin to feel it until a day or so later when it occurred to me that I'd never feel her arm around my waist again. I'd never see her half-finished hair style and her carefully placed bobby pins, I'd never taste her jam or see her face light up through the gap between her screen and apartment doors. My heart broke into a million pieces. She was 88, and she lived a long and beautiful life, filled with love. She never had to move to a home, she never experienced Alzheimers or lost her wit, she drove her own car until just months ago. She was cheeky and silly until the very end and there's something so beautiful and devastating about the end of a life like that.

The day of her funeral was surreal and dream-like. I had a prenatal appointment that morning in town, and lay on the clinic table as the doctor found the tiny little heartbeat of the new life inside of me. Something so new and untouched, so treasured and filled with possibilities and potential; The very first chapter of a book that I hoped would be as long and incredible as my grandma's.

I stood over my mom as she spoke to me, choking back tears, reciting aloud the tribute she'd written the night before. I was styling her hair for the day ahead, trying to help in any small way I could. As I ran the comb through the strands I noticed her grey hair poking through the blonde, I noticed how it was more than I remembered and wondered how many had only just arrived after the ordeal from the days before.  My own mom was getting older too, I realized, and I imagined a day I wouldn't be able to just call her on the phone. For a moment I felt the pain my mother felt and my heart broke all over again. My beautiful mother, a source of so much of my strength and courage and inspiration, her hair lightly salted, more than I'd like. As I chose the style for her hair, she lightly touched the curls I'd put in mine and said, "I like the way these look," her voice a little distant, her thoughts wandering elsewhere still. "Mom always loved when my hair was curly."

And suddenly, before my eyes, my mom was no longer the Grandma of my children but transformed into the sweet little girl reaching out for her mother's approval and love. She wanted to look nice for her mom, she wanted her mom to be pleased and proud. My sweet beautiful mother, in the middle of her life but at the beginning of it all at once. I could tell that one of the key sources of her strength was suddenly stolen from her, and now here she sat in front of me, gripping her words tightly in her hands, vulnerable and scared and on her own for the first time in her life. The uncertainty in her voice wrenched my heart in new ways, and all I wanted in that moment was to make the pain go away. I wanted her to know that she was going to be okay, but there were no words so I swallowed my own pain and styled her hair as beautifully and perfectly as I could. It had to be just right.

The day was hard, but not because I longed for my grandma, but rather because I watched my mom endure it. I watched her grasp at every last minute she could have with her mom, and soldier through her brave and beautiful tribute. I watched her stroke my grandma's hair, and kiss her forehead, and freeze time for a moment as my grandma lay there with the sun on her face at the cemetery. I saw the longing in her eyes, for just a single moment more, just a single late-night tea more, for one last chance to absorb my grandma's wisdom and say one more reluctant goodbye. I watched something split open and then heal again in a new way that day and it was almost more than I could bare.

My grandma lies next to my grandpa now, only a few feet away from her son who went before. She's beneath a big, majestic tree and the sunset sparkles on the little plastic place holder adorning her name. Though she isn't really there. She is all around us, reminding us how special we are, how treasured and precious we will always be. She's worrying about us, wanting wonderful things for us, and wrapping her soft hands around our hearts to protect us from any little negative thing.

And just as my mom said in her sweet tribute that day, we'll all just have to try to be okay now.