...every day another miracle
Fourteen years ago, I found myself at 8:05 p.m. finally moving forward on a Greyhound bus heading towards Columbus, OH, from Pittsburgh, PA. It was April 11, 2002, and I remember writing in my notebook:
"I am going home to bury my grandfather."
I had no idea until days later that my own mother was the one sitting with my grandfather, her father, at that time, and that he would pass from here to his heaven within minutes of me writing this, my mother the only one in the room at the hospice with him. The added bonus is that it was my mother's 60th birthday.
*
His wife of over 65 years outlived him by 14 years, but even bodies in seemingly good yet failing health tend to just break down. My grandmother was on antibiotics apparently for a cold the week preceding. That she seemed fine and then went into semi-consciousness, then into the Great Unknown on October 14, 2016, is something I accept. My grandmother, middle name Lillian, which is such a beautiful name, and one I didn't know was hers until maybe 4-5 years ago, passed peacefully.
Again, I can only hope for such a passage.
*
I received word that she was not doing well on Thursday morning, and by early Friday morning she had moved beyond us. She wasn't awake apparently since early Friday morning. And for that I am beyond grateful.
*
I'm struggling, though. In becoming the true black sheep of the family, elements of family have just shrugged it all aside. The past is the past. Let's move on, 'cause time is short.
*
sooner or later, we learn to throw the past away...
*
I'm 40 years old, and what I'll take with me is seeing the kids my cousins and brother and sister have spawned, doing the idiotic things we did when we were young: throwing walnuts at the telephone pole, wanting to and climbing up places their Great-Grandmother would have sentenced them to just watching out the window for. Walking beyond the stream, because you can't see them past there. Wanting to climb that next branch. Climbing that same chem tower I do every year but I know the hazards...but kids...
*
Running the hay rows across Strawberry Fields in October, losing my boot, and seeing how the sun is still setting but my cousins, my family, even though they make fun of me, they help me.
*
Seeing all of us, the cousins that used to be the third (and sometimes fourth) generation, grow up, and learn to be the one that is now the next in line behind our own parents. This is something I cannot imagine.
*
I'm standing next to my Aunt Helen. We are graveside. Very nonchalantely she says, well, you're the next generation. (I paraphrase, sorry, Helen). The cask is being lowered over my grandmothers, her mothers, casket. We should be crying, but we are laughing. We are teachers, learners, scholars, FARMERS, people of the earth that continue to educate ourselves despite everything. That my grandmother's, my Smith's, daughters are interegatting this guy that is just doing his job is on par with what not only what Bettie Jane would do, but also what Smith would come back to check on and wonder what happened. And why they screwed it up (they didn't...they, well, did a great job, which is probably why my family stays with the same funeral home after 100 years).
Needless to say, nothing happened. But it was hardly a solemn affair. The daughters stayed after for the dirt. Us Grandkids and familys in tow? We grabbed some White Castles and went out to the farm. Because, that is what Grandma would have liked, as long as we didin't go farther than the stream (we did, but I think we get this one grace).
It was the Smith Family Reunion that kinda sorta happened, and while you weren't there, we missed you Nate and Mika. We talked. We ate. We dispersed pickles. We looked for walnuts, disguised as buckeyes. We talked, briefly, about breaking into the farmhouse. But then we just talked.
And that was then, as I'm watching us talk amongst ourselves, some things never change. Those ahead make fun of those behind. "Ice unsafe." No kidding. But here Rob and I are walking along like the last 16 years never happened, making fun of everyone who stopped behind us to pause at the same sign.
Grandson, granddaughter, and even to their kids, bear no measure of idiocy. I am coming to realize why Smith had those signs on the way out.
*
We did a much better drive than we did for Smith, 14 years ago. But Grandma would have loved it. Past all her favorite places (including the old Grace Lutheran), down Courtright Rd, and a good pause along Watkins Road as she passed the farm house. If only the White Castle and McDonalds were still there, but as with everything, age and time and familiarity just erase us all.
*
Finally finishing this, six+ years later.
"I am going home to bury my grandfather."
I had no idea until days later that my own mother was the one sitting with my grandfather, her father, at that time, and that he would pass from here to his heaven within minutes of me writing this, my mother the only one in the room at the hospice with him. The added bonus is that it was my mother's 60th birthday.
*
His wife of over 65 years outlived him by 14 years, but even bodies in seemingly good yet failing health tend to just break down. My grandmother was on antibiotics apparently for a cold the week preceding. That she seemed fine and then went into semi-consciousness, then into the Great Unknown on October 14, 2016, is something I accept. My grandmother, middle name Lillian, which is such a beautiful name, and one I didn't know was hers until maybe 4-5 years ago, passed peacefully.
Again, I can only hope for such a passage.
*
I received word that she was not doing well on Thursday morning, and by early Friday morning she had moved beyond us. She wasn't awake apparently since early Friday morning. And for that I am beyond grateful.
*
I'm struggling, though. In becoming the true black sheep of the family, elements of family have just shrugged it all aside. The past is the past. Let's move on, 'cause time is short.
*
sooner or later, we learn to throw the past away...
*
I'm 40 years old, and what I'll take with me is seeing the kids my cousins and brother and sister have spawned, doing the idiotic things we did when we were young: throwing walnuts at the telephone pole, wanting to and climbing up places their Great-Grandmother would have sentenced them to just watching out the window for. Walking beyond the stream, because you can't see them past there. Wanting to climb that next branch. Climbing that same chem tower I do every year but I know the hazards...but kids...
*
Running the hay rows across Strawberry Fields in October, losing my boot, and seeing how the sun is still setting but my cousins, my family, even though they make fun of me, they help me.
*
Seeing all of us, the cousins that used to be the third (and sometimes fourth) generation, grow up, and learn to be the one that is now the next in line behind our own parents. This is something I cannot imagine.
*
I'm standing next to my Aunt Helen. We are graveside. Very nonchalantely she says, well, you're the next generation. (I paraphrase, sorry, Helen). The cask is being lowered over my grandmothers, her mothers, casket. We should be crying, but we are laughing. We are teachers, learners, scholars, FARMERS, people of the earth that continue to educate ourselves despite everything. That my grandmother's, my Smith's, daughters are interegatting this guy that is just doing his job is on par with what not only what Bettie Jane would do, but also what Smith would come back to check on and wonder what happened. And why they screwed it up (they didn't...they, well, did a great job, which is probably why my family stays with the same funeral home after 100 years).
Needless to say, nothing happened. But it was hardly a solemn affair. The daughters stayed after for the dirt. Us Grandkids and familys in tow? We grabbed some White Castles and went out to the farm. Because, that is what Grandma would have liked, as long as we didin't go farther than the stream (we did, but I think we get this one grace).
It was the Smith Family Reunion that kinda sorta happened, and while you weren't there, we missed you Nate and Mika. We talked. We ate. We dispersed pickles. We looked for walnuts, disguised as buckeyes. We talked, briefly, about breaking into the farmhouse. But then we just talked.
And that was then, as I'm watching us talk amongst ourselves, some things never change. Those ahead make fun of those behind. "Ice unsafe." No kidding. But here Rob and I are walking along like the last 16 years never happened, making fun of everyone who stopped behind us to pause at the same sign.
Grandson, granddaughter, and even to their kids, bear no measure of idiocy. I am coming to realize why Smith had those signs on the way out.
*
We did a much better drive than we did for Smith, 14 years ago. But Grandma would have loved it. Past all her favorite places (including the old Grace Lutheran), down Courtright Rd, and a good pause along Watkins Road as she passed the farm house. If only the White Castle and McDonalds were still there, but as with everything, age and time and familiarity just erase us all.
*
Finally finishing this, six+ years later.
It reminds me of a different time of life. One where I thought I was going in a different direction. But it all just settled back. The only thing that changed was my life changing from Savannah to L.I. to Upstate NY in the course of...three years.
*
In between my parents generation has started to die off. My closest uncle first, followed by my mom's youngest sister in the same year (2021). That was followed by a very random death in a not related but still -family- death of the daughter of...I don't even know how to describe it...Her family was, in all in all sense, family. I grew up with all of the father's sibilings, his youngest brother was a kid I grew up with, along with all his family. Regardless, I was close to the oldest brother, and knew her from birth up up until leaving the church.
*
She was doing her daily run and got hit by a drunk driver. Died. It still tears me up.
*
I've become very stoic in life. What is, it is. Move on. It's never until those final moments that I find my gut moving and my eyes giving way when I fail myself. I was actually fine with how my grandmother passed, a cold, coma, passed away. Good. No pain. No suffering. But as soon as "Onward Christian Soldiers" was sung, it was all I could do to not keep control.
*
It is August 26, 2022.
I read these words and maybe they are mine, but even that person that I was a year or two ago, even six years ago, is gone. I don't know who I am anymore.
On the other hand, I'm discovering, late in life, that it's just books. Nothing made me happier in high school than when the Dewey decimal system worked. Even better when I found the congressional system (??) worked for me, and found so many volumes of Dante, etc, in the stacks of the OSU library. Just because I was -somewhat-smarter than the other folk in my class and read a 1922 version of Canterbury Tales, that wasn't verse. It's not cheating if you use the knowledge available to you...because, ya know, OSU.
*
I'm re-reading a lot of all this. It's not fun. I feel I do have grown, but I think I've stagnated.
I'm happier just having two screens, both playing the same movie, day after day...
*
"that's life"
I love you all.
Be safe.
Don't be that guy/gal/etc.
It's easier than it seems.
posted by jersn at 12:58 AM
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