As we prepare
to close her final chapter, I try to make sense of broken memories flooding my
mind.
Bits and
pieces floating by, not one having anything to do with the other.
Are they memories
forged in my mind from events, old photographs, or memories I created to cope?
The days
leading up to her departure filled my nights with vivid dreams of people I used
to know, people who left this world, people who left me behind.
My
grandfather was first to visit. He always visits me when I seem to need him
most, even if I don’t know I need him just yet. He never speaks in my dreams, much
like when he was alive.
Every night
for a few months, the same dream. He is standing at the sink washing dishes. He
senses me staring intensely at him as I sit at the table. The warm sun comes
through the kitchen window kissing yellow curtains, causing him to glow. He
turns and smiles at me and I wake feeling safe.
The same
dream, every night, always him. Then the game changed.
The dream
started the same, but then I could smell the smoke. That familiar smell of
dried tobacco specially blended just for her, carefully rolled in rag fibers.
An odor sweet and bitter. That smell could only belong to one person. I turn to
my left and there she sits with a crooked smile full of mischief. Ah, there you
are Aunt Pauline. She smiles at me. I turn to look at my grandfather and he
smiles, nodding his head.
I awoke
confused, but feeling secure.
Grandma took
a turn for the worse. She began hallucinating, couldn’t really speak coherently,
asking for people long gone, but fresh in her mind.
I knew her
time was nearing the end.
The dream
started the same. Grand Daddy at the sink, Pauline to my left with the scent of
cigarette smoke. But then there was the rich smell of a roast wafting from the
oven.
I look
straight ahead and there stands Granny, cooking over the stove just as she did
many times when I was little. Always cooking and always too much.
I asked why
once. She replied, “You never know who’s coming to eat sweetie. We have to have
enough for everyone.”
On the table
once empty except for an ashtray, suddenly there is food prep stuff in front of
me.
Granny turns
to me and says, "Oh good, you're here sweetie. I need you to help get the
food ready. We have a lot of company coming. We have to have enough for
everyone. Get to snapping those beans."
Without
realizing it, I see I have already started snapping the beans. But I am so very
confused.
She talked.
No one ever talks. They are only supposed to smile at me. Granny, she talked. And
I woke up.
My husband
and I were on our way to a bonfire at the volunteer rescue station he
volunteers for. We stopped so he could get gas and buy hotdogs.
I was looking
out the window at the building across the street and it happened.
For a moment,
the world stopped. The birds silenced their songs; the machine slowed down to a
halt.
The world
took a deep breath stealing mine. Slowly, I come back to earth and I gasp.
Five minutes
later my phone rang and time stood still again, while I struggled to catch my
breath.
