A very dear friend of mine lost her grandfather just three weeks after her grandmother passed. Dealing with that level of loss is nearly impossible to relate to. I have not had the experience of losing many people close to me, but I have had my share. I want to help her but I know there is nothing I can do except be there for her when she is ready to come back to the world.
My losses have been few by most adult standards. I lost my Great-Grandmother when I was 10, my Grandmother when I was about 28, and my grandfather in my 40's. My husband's father died after we had only been married about 9 months. This loss...I felt this loss to the depths of my soul. I loved my father in law. He was a great man. He would talk to me about my work and about his medical conditions and the meds he took for them. He would tell my mother in law to "stop yammering at the girl" and share me...he wanted his time, too. His wanted to give advice so I would always find some kind of minor problem for him to advise about. His advice was always sound. His smile enormous as he delivered it.
Loss is felt differently by different people and for different people. What I mean by that is, losing my grandmother and grandfather (my mother's parents-I don't know my sperm donor's family) was really not even a blip in my life. Grandma was the meanest woman I have ever met...even to this day. My grandpa was a nice man but we really weren't close...he was married to the meanest woman in the world, after all, so there wasn't much opportunity to be close.
My great-grandmother, Nana, was a wonderful woman who would read to us and play jump rope...She helped us hone our imaginations. Her daughter, my grandmother, didn't play with us or read to us. But, she did instill in me a love for America's pastime, baseball! I was ill a lot as a child (and even still now but I manage it better) and spent a great deal of time with Nana, who lived with my grandparents. When I was at their house, wheezing, grandma would sit me in front of the TV and tell me to pay attention and take the stats of the game she turned on for me. She was in the other room listening to another game on the radio AND watching a third game on a smaller TV. Living in California offered many baseball teams to follow, and follow them she did!
Nana loved her soaps. I loved her soaps. I watched the entire schedule of ABC daytime dramas until they each went away. As I got older and needed to work, I spent less time watching the soaps but I also learned that I could miss months and still not feel like I missed any when I could catch up with one on a sick day. Luckily, I could always get through the soaps with Nana before I was put to work watching baseball.
I still watch baseball. I don't keep the stats of every game in a binder like grandma...I just watch because I love it. When I have the great fortune to go to a game, I cry when I crest the top of the steps at the Left Field gates of Safeco Field and can see the grass. Baseball is special to me. It was the only reason my grandmother spoke to me.
Nana told us she loved us (and would turn out to be the only one who did for many years) and wanted to hear our songs and stories-wanted to know what kinds of games we played and helped us make up games only we knew how to play. When she died, I thought I might not live, either. I wondered who would love me and who would take care of me when I was sick.
Now, I write stories that I feel Nana would like. Stories I feel my father in law would appreciate. Not all the stories I write are for Nana or Ken (my father in law) but I do find a great deal of inspiration thinking about them. Wishing I could have had them a bit longer.
Someday I hope to write a story that would have made them very proud. I will know when it happens because I will feel their pride. Sometimes I find myself talking to them...in my head...more than 40 years after her passing I still talk to her and he has been gone about 7 years. Asking their advice. I know they are watching over me. I know they are proud of me. I know they still love me.
What else does a person need?
Later...
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