And here's to you

I remember the first time I took a drink.... I was 11.  I poured bourbon into my lemonade, watched The Brady Bunch and thought about how much I hated my father.

I love the sound of a cork popping.  I love the slow pour of a aged wine into the appropriate glass.  I relish Stilton and Port.  I adore the sweet trickle and minty zing of a perfect Mint Julep.  The right combination of lime and vodka in a Cosmopolitan can make me swoon.  A good Zinfandel is like velvet... smooth and soft, warm and inviting.

I am in love with the beast.

I am never alone with a glass in my hand.

I sip between each sentence... I swallow between each thought.

I am anesthetized.  I wish.

I miss you.  I have no one to call.  I miss your guidance.  I miss your gentle drawl.  I have so much to tell you... so much I want to know.

Its only as good as the bottle is full.  Each pour, I suffer a little more.

The electric hum of the television in the other room is like a cadence.  My mother and husband sit before it and are absorbed with its offerings.  In the study, I try to write.  What can I say?  Christmas has come and gone.  As the new year approaches, all I can think of is that it will be a year without you.

I read a story today in The Washington Post about a 29 year old woman who had lost her husband.  29.  She had only yet begun to know herself much less her husband.  88.  You were 88 and married 70 years.  There was nothing left undone.  How happy I am that I had so much time to spend with you.  How scared I am that I have so much more to live without you.

I am weary with condolences; I am unsure whether or not you are in a better place.  I am frightened.  I am tired of being told that your suffering has ended.  Remember, we promised one another that whoever would be first to go would get in touch with the other?  Where are you?  If there is a heaven, surely you are there.

I take another sip.  I have ceased to taste the wine... my mouth is sour.

You gave me a gift this Christmas.  Days before your death, you chose a gift for me.  I am cored.

The days have wafted past... I am unsure of the time.  Mornings seamlessly meld into evening.  Easy come, easy go.

Of this I am sure... your beauty is unparalleled.  So soft your touch, so gentle your heart.  Maybe, maybe, I needed your kind of fairy tale magic... maybe you weren't all that you seemed to me... maybe no one can live to those standards... but I believe.

I remember my first drink.  I drank to forget.  It is so easy to pick up a glass.  Bottoms up, Gran.

Christmas

The ice has glazed the fallen snow.  A quarter moon silvers the ground.  I wrap my arms around myself to brace against the cold and watch as my breath mists into the air.

A week has passed.  The days ebb and flow.  Get up, go on, lay down.  I go forward.  I work.  I play.  I cook, and clean, and fold, and put way, and answer and question and finally close my eyes.  She's gone.  The first Christmas I can remember without her... without her voice, her hands, but not her gifts.  She chose a gift for me.  She chose a gift for me before she died.  A pottery lamb.

Carols ring hollow.  Words fall carelessly.  I operate on automatic.

Its been a beautiful Christmas.  A charming Christmas.  Beautiful gifts, bountiful food, good company... and yet.  And yet.

Merry Christmas Gran.  Wherever you are, the light shines brighter.

My angry heart

The day after Gran died, Virginia was inundated by an historic snowstorm.  We chose to drive south on I-95 in the midst of it to spend an early Christmas with Tim's family.

I felt myself gliding, acting on automatic; smile here, laugh there, eat... it wasn't so hard.

Coming home was harder.  The snow, heaved to the side of the street like so much refuse, had turned a dingy gray.  The lines of traffic ahead of us plodded slowly along, careful of the slick patches the snow plows had missed.  Light glared off the crest of the snow, blinding me. I had an hour in the car with nothing to do but think.

Today I sat in my psychiatrist's office with my five year old on my lap.  Crisply, I informed him of Gran's death.  He wrote me a two month prescription and conveyed his condolences.

I left his office disturbed at with the quiet in my head.  When I feel emotion, it is only anger.  I bristle when told to rejoice for her soul.  I seethe when told it is a blessing she is no longer suffering.

Sitting to compose this, though, I did think of how fortunate I am... I had time to adjust to the idea of losing Gran.  The knowledge of the imminent end allowed me to prepare myself.  I have no regrets, no secrets I didn't share.  Indeed, to many my loss may seem almost trivial... how many 39 year olds still have their grandmothers?  One acquaintance even sniffed, as I mentioned my grandmother's impending death, "And how old is she?".

True.  She lived a full life.

Yet, she also filled mine with so much happiness... and I have much more life to live without her.

Is anger part of the grieving process?

December 18th

Honestly, I was dumbstruck.  The cell phone almost seemed to burn my hand.  I could not believe that Charlie was relaying the message to me; Gran was gone.  How was I not the first to know?  As many times a day as I called, how was I sitting in the traffic line waiting to pick up the children and just learning that she had passed that morning?  The knowledge stung me like a slap to the face.  

I looked through the window shield of my car and saw the cross atop the school building.  I felt betrayed.  I felt abandoned.  I didn't feel relief that her suffering had ended.  Fuck God for making her suffer in the first place.

The whistle blew and I exited my car, tears coursing down my face.  Several teachers stopped me, embraced me; Teddy's teacher even suggested that Gran was in a hurry to meet Jesus before Christmas.  Jesus is right.  Jesus indeed.  Jesus Christ are these people serious?

She served her god.  She attended mass regularly.  She observed the stations of the cross.  She was a regular server for Adoration.  In the end, she wore morphine patches and had to have pain killers placed in suppository form.  God wanted that?  In his infinite wisdom, God created cancer and afflicted my grandmother with it?

I have questioned a lot in my life.  Interestingly, I have never questioned, Why me?  Why am I afflicted with bi polar depression?  I am unconcerned.  Some people are diabetic, others are hemophiliacs... I get it.  Some people are born to suffer.  A cross to bear, my mother would say.  Well enough is enough.  Pick on the rapists, the pedophiles, the murderers.  Sweet little grandmothers should be off limits.  

I used to be firebrand.  My tongue was silver and quick and I rarely paused to check with my head before using it.  I like to think I have mellowed and matured... that my bodily parts are more connected to my mental faculties.  Well consider me undone.  Unhinged.  For those of you who are devout, consider me uncouth.  Save a plane that crash lands into the Hudson but condemn thousands of innocents in Darfur?  Where is the logic?  Where is the justice?  The Infinite Wisdom?  When a "miracle" occurs, a baby snatched from fire, a warrior brought home, God is credited... where is God for the little girl smothered by her mother in Florida?  Where is God for Matthew Sheperd?  Where was God for Gran, and spare me the explanation that she was put out of her suffering because who would have caused her suffering in the first place?

I am spewing bitterness and hatred... most likely because it is a bile I cannot keep down any longer.  I am sickened.  My heart is halved.  

Green is a Christmas color, right?

I have always been envious.

I sat next to Brooke Hayes in our Methodist pre-school.  She was my best friend.  And I coveted her glasses, braids and pretty dresses.

I envied my cousin in Chicago with all her fancy clothes, which I received generously handed down.  She had a father who loved her; I couldn't fathom what that must be like.

With braces and acne, I envied all my friends with clear skin and straight teeth.

So I should've recognized the ugly emotion broiling within me last night, and held my tongue, but I failed.  Wine and comradarie loosened my lips and I spewed nasty sentiments about a gracious host.  Her home was "too decorated, too pat, contrived" I spat.  Her home, in truth, was lovely and large, and reminded me of the well appointed homes in the Delta.

I woke up this morning, feeling sheepish, my tongue thick in my mouth.  Not unlike a drunk regretting her antics, I thought of friends to whom I needed to apologize.

There will always be someone more beautiful, smarter, wealthier than I.  Why do I take that as a personal insult?

Christmas pasts

A dense low sky hung over Austin.  Icecicles sparkled from wires, tree branches, cactus nettles.  It was unusually cold.

I spent most of my days unpacking wedding gifts and attempting dishes like Marchand Du Vin.  Having barely settled into our new apartment from our honeymoon, going back east for Christmas was not feasible.    So we braved black ice and frozen armadillos and set out to find a Christmas tree.  We had ten ornaments.  Fortunately, misletoe and rosemary grow plentifully in South Central Texas, so I decorated herbally.

It was the first Christmas either of us had spent away from our parents.  It almost seemed taboo.  We drank champagne and ate citrus infused turkey.  We gave extravagant presents and skipped church.

When all of the candles had burned low, we retired.  Then as I lay in the moonlit room, I listened for Tim's breathing, as I held my own breath... knowing of course, that I didn't deserve such happiness,  and surely it would be taken away from me.

We have spent twelve Christmases together, twelve treasured seasons.  Some have been shared with parents, Gran and Grandaddy, and once we even stayed in our house with Teddy and Annelise, creating our own traditions.

Still, when all is quiet, after stockings and the rustling of wrapping paper, the meal and the satiated nap, when the last ember of the Yule log has burned low and everyone is under covers, I write our "memories" down, afraid that if such good luck is not acknowledged, it will turn bad.

Higher ground

I rode in his immaculate truck to the lumber yard.  He held one steady weathered hand on the wheel and the other he used to drink his endless cup of coffee.    He is one of seven children, catholic, old school.

Most people have horror stories about their contractors; I feel as if mine could be my grandfather, albeit a rather young one as he is in his sixties.

My own grandfather is mucking about in Mississippi, making lives miserable.  At 93, he is cantankerous, ornery and unapologetic.  He blames the world for his lot in life, a lot so many would be lucky to have.

Robert, my contractor, reminds me of the grandfather I thought I had, before I became an adult, before I knew better, before.  He is a hardworking self-made man.  He took risks, but he took them holding his wife's hand.  He made money and he lost more.  Then he rebuilt his business and recouped his losses without forgetting who he was or where he came from.

My mother followed my grandfather to the casinos yesterday.  She said he must have been doing 90.  he angled for the closest parking space to the building.  That's where my mother caught him.  Cagily, craftily, he cackled and wagged a finger at her, "I was just testing you", he called out.  It is despicable.  He is a sad Faulknerian caricature, embroiled in debt and deceit, sidestepping as his wife lies dying.  He wails and moans, cries and prays.  My mother wants me to understand his pain, his terror at losing his beloved.  My sympathy has run dry.

Robert turned the truck into my driveway and then caught my arm before I tried to exit.  "Careful", he said.  "You could fall from there; let me back up to more level ground".  Too late, I thought.