Grandmother

Grandmothers pass away. That’s what they do. They’re famous for it. They love you unconditionally in a kind and soft-spoken way that’s completely different from your mother and father. Unlike your parents, they understand very little about you. Conversations with them are forgettable. They send you gifts that are for children much younger than you and they send you checks in amounts that are frivolous. But it is all forgivable. One forgives it because their love is so honest, genuine and pure. One knows that their heart is in the right place even if their mind isn’t. If there were any proof that pacifism and charity can work, it is the grandmother.

She would sit with me and read me the adventures of Christopher Robin. I would listen attentively to every word. She would stop and search through “When We Were Very Young” for boy-related stories and poems for what seemed like forever. I knew she just wanted to find something that I would like, but I just simply wanted to hear her read to me. It didn’t matter what; she could have read to me the dictionary and I would have been content.

She lived a full life into her late eighties with five children and eleven grandchildren. Still, it seems disappointing that she’ll never see me marry or hold a great-grandchild. I’m also certain she forgot who I was years ago. That’s the way the mind is, I guess. The last moment I shared with her was lifting her from her wheelchair to a bed to rest the day before my sister’s wedding. She was scared and confused from the world and my face brought her no comfort.

So, now she’s gone and with it comes a sigh from my father that is both of relief and grief.

I imagine that’s the best way to go.