Friday, December 18, 2009

The Christmas card

I have to preface this post by making it clear that rarely can I blog in "real time". There is always something else that needs to be done, the words for the experience aren't there, or like this particular experience, it wasn't finished yet. I started this post in September, but couldn't finish it because it wasn't finished with me... until last week. I was finally able to 'record' it today.



Company was coming. That meant one thing… house cleaning. And lots of it!

A prominent feature in this deep cleaning whirlwind always includes de-cluttering the desk. I have an image to uphold and I certainly didn’t want my guests to think my desk always looks like the paper shredder threw up on it. So I sorted, filed, and threw away, and somewhere between unused, expired coupons and statements of all sorts, it showed up again.

A Christmas card.

Addressed and stamped.

Unmailed and unopened.

I come across this same card every time I clean the desk and each and every time it goes back there to be dealt with at another time. This ritual has continued for the last twelve months. I can’t throw it away. There isn’t anywhere to file it. I can’t even send it this year. The addressee, my Grandma Viola, died the morning I was to mail it.

My mom phoned me the night before to let me know that Viola had suffered a stroke. She told me that she was still lucid, but she was having a difficult time eating. I’m not dumb, I know what those words really meant…Viola wasn’t doing well and her time left here was short.

I knew that her 93 year old body was failing, as we had visited her earlier in the year and I found her dramatically changed from our last visit. I left the retirement home trying to stave off the flood of tears until I was in the car and my face hidden from the kids. I failed miserably- the dam broke. Luckily, Richard explained to the inquiries of”Why is mom crying?” that it was hard for me to see my grandma so weak, frail, and bedbound. But I knew it was more than that- much more. I knew that this was the last time I would see her in this life.

Even with such knowledge, I had been in denial and figured there was always more time. Now with a phone call, I was facing the reality that time had run out.

I felt badly, that as always, I was behind and hadn’t even gotten her Christmas card mailed yet. Mom said it would be good to send it anyway and perhaps, it would get there in time. So I gathered the card and a family picture, I addressed the envelope, but I couldn’t write the sentiments in the card. Words failed me. How do you adequately express to someone who is dying how much you love them and what the part they’ve played in your life has meant to you? Words were not enough, so I went to bed determined to try again after a night’s sleep.

Moring came and so did the words. But even as I penned those words, walked the card to the mailbox, and put up the red flag, I knew. It was too late. Another phone call from my mom confirmed it. I retrieved the card from the mailbox and laid it in its final resting place on the desk.

Arrangements were made and so was our trip to LaGrande for the funeral.

I have never been one to deal well with death. My emotions run close to the surface and I become the leaky faucet you can’t fix. I don’t cry for those who have passed; I know they have been welcomed into loving arms. It’s the loving arms left behind which are now empty, the great-grand children that are too small to remember the loved one that filled the void, the absence that must be endured until we meet again, that is what I cry for.

I did pretty well at the funeral. I held the tears mostly at bay, forming a headache from the built up pressure, until the reading of Viola’s life sketch. As my mom read about the grandma I had know my whole life, I realized I never really knew her at all. It is a devastating feeling when you learn more about a loved one at their funeral listening to their life sketch, than you did from visiting with them in life. I didn’t know she played basketball, that she worked in a bank, or that she loved to fish the lakes of my beautiful British Columbia.

I simply didn’t know and I hated myself for it.

Grandma Viola is my step-grandma, but since she married my grandpa before I was born she was the only grandma on my mom’s side I’d ever known. She was loveable, quick to laugh, and always had a candy dish filled to the brim, waiting to rot our teeth out and spoil us senseless- just what grandmas are supposed to be. I never felt like I was a ‘step’ down from her “normal” grandkids. She was always interested in how we were doing, what we were doing, she even asked questions about boys, and always wanted to see my latest dance or gymnastic routine. Sure, she lived 8 hours away from us, but we visited once or twice a year, corresponded through letters and phone calls, and I always felt connected. She loved me just like a grandma should. She loved me… that was the one thing I knew for sure- Grandma Viola loved me.

Sitting in the chapel enduring the remainder of the funeral, as I thought about the things I had just learned, I wished for 10 minutes, just 10 more minutes to visit with her, ask the questions I now desperately wanted answered; learn the most important things about her I should know. And now every time the card makes its way to the top of the pile I call a desk, the same wish passes through my mind; last week’ s de-cluttering session was no different, but the answer was.

As softly as the falling snow that flitted outside my window the words fell into my conscious thinking.

“You already know.”

As I stopped to ponder what these words meant, I found that perhaps my Christmas card wasn’t my last expression of love to my grandma, but hers to me.

The most important thing I should know was that she loved me.

And now there are no questions left unanswered.

10 comments:

Guest said...

I am so sorry for your loss; I think that I can also feel perhaps just a bit of what you did.

I still have my mom's number saved in my phone, even though I know it's no longer hers. I just can't bring myself to delete it, and sometimes, I just want to call that number in the hopes that she'd answer it.

Corine Moore said...

I really think I might know how you feel. I am one who is often plagued by the nagging thoughts and wishes of my own mind - expecting myself to do, know and be everything, and thoroughly... but it just isn't possible. It can be hard sometimes to see what really matters - but it seems you figured it out. :)

This is only the second time I have read a blog in some time now; I was meant to come here today.

Emotions flooded over me as I read this blog and I am thankful for the insights and comforts it affords me. So, THANK YOU sincerely for sharing this!

I hope your spirits remain comforted and that you have a very Merry Christmas! :D

A GAL NEEDS... said...

OK...that one got me. Nose runny, eyes watery. I'm so glad that you know for sure, finally.

Chastina said...

Your post brought tears to my eyes and reminded me of my grandma, who passed away when I was 16. The other day I was thinking that I know very little about her.

Rachel said...

All of us who have lost grandparents that we are close to or anyone that we are close to for that matter can relate in some way I think.

I'm glad you have the knowledge that your grandmother did indeed love you very much.

I hope someday in the next life to get to know my grandparents.

Richard & Natalie said...

Guest- Thank you. Isn't it interesting what we hold on to in order to 'hold on'?

Corine- I'm glad you came by today too. Really, it means a lot.
I am glad to know you found comfort here. When you share something personal and close to your heart it is nice to know that it made a difference to someone. So thank you for sharing your comment with me.
I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and that the New Year brings you happiness and lots of time to BLOG! :)

Helena- I hope you hadn't done your make-up yet; I would hate to ruin a good make-up job. :0) Thanks.

Chastina- I think sometimes we forget that grandparents had lives and families just like ours at one time.
I hope it brought back happy memories.

Rachel- Thanks for the tears in Sunday school...
I hope to get to know 2 of my grandparents too. I have a feeling that we are already well aquainted though and it will be more of a reunion than an introduction.

Gerb said...

This was just beautiful. My dad died almost 9 years ago and I still can't leave his birthday off of my calendar every year. It's not like I would ever forget the date; it's more that it's even more real that he's gone when he's missing from the old familiar places. Or that I'm somehow worried I will forget.

I am often plagued with that thought - I just don't want to forget him as it seems many others have so I suppose I am doing all I can to keep his memory alive.

Anyhow, I could go on forever about this. Thanks for a touching post.

Corine Moore said...

Hi again. :) I'm sort of obsessed with checking to see if the author of a blog that I commented on, comments back (he, he - I'm such a coo coo! :); so here I am today- AND WITHOUT DISCIPPOINTEMENT! :) Thanks for your response to my response. :) I too, am hoping to begin blogging again with the new year... and if I do, I will let you know.

Unknown said...

Natalie--this is my first visit to your blog, and I'm so glad I had a moment to take in the view on the Parke Bench. You are a gifted writer. This was a beautiful post, and one that I'm sure is striking a chord in just about everyone who reads it. I've suffered the loss of my husband's grandparents in the last couple of years, and had that same sense of simultaneous identity and unfamiliarity. There's so much more to these individuals than just the small world we create for them wrapped up in our own ego, you know? I've been contemplating a writing project involving my own 80+ year old grandmother as a result of these feelings, but I'm not sure it's feasible--she lives some distance away and isn't online. Anyway--sorry for the length. Like I said--you struck a chord.

Richard & Natalie said...

Gerb, Lori, & Corine,
First, please forgive my belatedness in responding to your comments. I love to respond, but due to the chaos that is the holiday season and my trying to finish and cram 25 hrs of continuing ed. in before the end of the year, I was prevented in doing so. I'm sorry; you all wrote such kind things and I wanted you to know, even if it was late, how much I appreciated them.

Gerb, I find it touching and completely appropriate to still include your dad's b-day on the calendar. Why not? When someone plays such a huge role in our lives, who says we can't still celebrate them, the lives they led, and our love for them that doesn't fade even though they aren't here right now?

Corine, Welcome to the Cuckoo Club!
The last time I visited your blog blogger told me it doesn't exist anymore. If you start blogging again do let me know.

Lori,
Thank you for stopping by and for your comment. You summed up my feelings completely with your statement "There's so much more to these individuals than just the small world we create for them wrapped up in our own ego, you know?" I love it.
Your project with your grandmother sounds like a great idea. I hope you can find a way to make it work. I've been thinking of doing something similar with my parents; there is so much I want to have recorded before I can't.