In My Grief

I’ve never considered myself a writer. Or, at least, not a very good one. My specialties always landed somewhere within the non-fiction genre. Essays for high school English classes were a cinch, and my teachers always had something wonderful to say about my opinionated pieces. But to this day, I hoard old notebooks full of fiction away in a drawer where I pray no one in the house will go snooping. Creativity was never my strong suit, so I gave up trying to write a long time ago. Until today.

I sit down in front of the laptop I ran out and bought on a whim. My heart is heavy in my chest, and I can’t see the screen through tears. Like so many times before, the words will not come. This time, however, they shy away for a different reason than the familiar feeling of writer’s block. This time I am full of doubt because there is too much to say, and too many ways to say it. I am afraid I will use the wrong words, or dull phrasings and metaphors that don’t come anywhere close to describing how I feel in this moment. So, I’m writing to you instead. 

There is no intriguing way to write about all the afternoons after school that I would run down the hill to your house, or the way you’d make dippy eggs and toast for me without me ever needing to tell you I was hungry. And how do I explain the term dippy eggs to someone that isn’t from Pennsylvania anyway? Am I supposed to go off on a tangent about how it’s our way of saying ‘sunny-side up’, and that I didn’t know that the two terms were synonymous until a year ago? I mean, I think that’s hilarious (I’m pretty sure you would get a laugh out of that too) but would anyone else care? Probably not. 

You were always telling me I needed to spend time with my friends more - get out of the house and enjoy life. Every now and then you’d give me the somewhat awkward ‘there’s always time for boys and children later’ speech. Before I would leave your house you would say to me “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” and follow it up with, “well, then, you wouldn’t be doing much of anything would you?” Every competition, every concert, every sporting event - you were there. You were always guiding, supporting, and watching over us even when we didn’t always realize it. That’s why, at graduation, I gave you and Pap my stole. But how can I write about you sitting in your La-Z-Boy by the window in the sun-room every morning, watching me and my brother get on the bus to school just because you liked to watch us come and go? It doesn’t make for a compelling story if I’m being honest, but it made up so much of who you were. 

You helped raise every last one of us in some way; your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren. Even after you grew up as a child somewhere in the middle of twelve others - forced by a strict father and neglectful mother to raise all the ones younger than you - you continued to take care of the children in your family. I suppose I could write about that, but I never got the chance to ask you about how you grew up. I’ve only ever heard pieces of stories passed around the family; not enough to write a whole novel, but you deserve nothing less than the most I can give you.  

Maybe I could write about how you and Pap were my safe place. How I would run to your house everyday because I felt alienated in my own home, where I also grew up with a father who only ever yelled at me and a mother who was unable to choose between her husband or her children. I could talk about the comfort you brought me without either one of us ever needing to talk about my home life, and how my respect for you was never based in fear like it was with my father. But I’m not ready to write that story yet; not ready to come face to face with my own trauma. How do you write a positive story about overcoming abuse when you haven’t yet found a way to heal?

I don’t want to write about your loss of memory in the last few years of your life, but I’ll never forget the happiness I felt when I’d come to visit and you’d remember to call me Moe - the nickname you and Pap gave me when I was little - instead of Nick, the name you gave my aunt. I want to forget how you would eat and drink so little, and often forget to take your medication. After reading up on dementia I learned that dehydration is one of the largest causes of strokes, and I don’t want to think about how that information - had we known it at the time - might have kept you around a little longer. I don’t remember who told me the news of your stroke, or how, or when. So how do I write a story I don’t fully remember - or allow myself to remember - the details to? 

I do remember coming to visit you in the hospital. I can still picture Pap holding your hand and talking to you through his tears because the doctors told us that, even though you couldn’t speak to us, you could hear us. I’m still ashamed of myself for not saying more than “hello” and “goodbye” to you during that visit. I just didn’t know what to say at the time. When you finally came home, you laid in a hospital bed for a week by the same window in the sun-room you used to watch me from. Hospice came in and out every day to check on you. I didn’t know what to say to Pap, so I only visited you twice. The last time was the day you passed. I don’t want to write about that either. I want to write about the last words I spoke to you that day.

I sat by your side and held your hand, listening to your ragged breaths, wondering if it hurt you. Hospice said you were on too much medication for it to hurt. I was afraid that maybe you wouldn’t understand me with all of that in your system, but I talked to you anyway. I told you that my daughter, your oldest great-great-grandchild, was getting so big. You always asked how old she was and talked about how much she was growing when I’d bring her to visit, so I needed to tell you one more time. I told you how much our family loved you, and how we appreciated how much of yourself you gave to us; how it never went unnoticed. I told you that I was going to go do many things with my life, and see so many amazing places. And I made you a promise: I would take you with me every step of the way so that you could see, through me, all the things you never got to see. I want to write about the tear I saw running down your cheek as I said these things to you, and the sounds that came from you that were more like soft sobs than gasping breaths. 

More than anything, I want to write about the surreal moment following your passing. I wasn’t there. I left about forty minutes beforehand, and I still wonder if you waited to pass until I had left; if you knew it was too much for me to stand over you and anticipate your last breath with every slow rise and fall of your chest, or if maybe my words gave you peace enough to let go. I still have a screenshot of the text Mom sent me, letting me know you were gone. She told me my four-year-old cousin, Casey, was running around on your front porch oblivious, as children often are, to what was happening inside. The whole family was gathered around your bed except for my grandfather. He was watching Casey out the window, and was the only one who heard what she shouted the very moment you left this world.

“I see an angel!” 

When they asked Casey later to describe again what she saw she said, “it was rainbow colors.” I want to write about that moment; the only one that ever made me think there might be a God.

I don’t know if it was a sign from God. I still don’t even know if I believe in Him, and I know you would be disappointed to know that. But I think I’d much rather believe it was a sign from you, letting us know that everything was going to be okay - that you were at peace, and we ought to be too. And I did feel peace, Nan. I want to describe to the world what it felt like to ache all over and still laugh through my tears because I could hear your voice in my head, halfheartedly scolding me for standing around bawling like a baby when I should have been out enjoying the sunshine. 

I want to write about your service and the pamphlets we were all given that day that I still hold onto. To do that I’d need to write about Pap and the clipping he cut out of a newspaper the same year you two were married - the one he kept in his wallet for all sixty-three years you spent together. It was printed onto the back of those pamphlets, and I read mine whenever I miss you a little too much. I want to copy it word for word on a page so the world can see the love you two shared, predicted to stand the test of time from the very beginning, in the form of a short poem titled “My Dear Wife Grace.” 

I hear you’re supposed to write something you, yourself, would want to read, but I don’t want to write something for me. I already know this story. I want to write it for you. I want the world to know your heart the way I do. I want to tell them what your hopes and dreams were, and share your wisdom with them. I want people to read a story about a woman who rose above her raising and loved and cared for her family with every inch of herself, up to the moment we had to say goodbye to her. I want to write a story about the angel that walked with us on Earth. 

But how can I? I’ve never been much of a writer, and it’s been so many years since I’ve even made an attempt to write. How do I share a poem that I don’t hold the rights to? How do I do your story justice with the mediocre words and phrases I come up with? Is it possible for me, with my simple skills, to write you back into this world? Am I capable of bringing you to life once again with words, or will my writing always fall flat in comparison to the real thing? The trouble is, Nan, there are no right words to describe you, or the way you carried yourself through life. At least, none so perfect as the one you were given when you came into this world: Grace.

Maybe I’m not ready to write about you just yet, but I will write other things. Out of my love for you, and my grief, I am inspired. You have reminded me that the root of being a writer is storytelling, and in your perseverance, wisdom, and love for others I have found the most important story I may ever have to share with the world. So I will hone my craft until I feel I am capable of putting you on the page exactly the way I remember you, in perfect detail.