Two in the morning. I will, right now make my first confession. Being my first post in the bloggersphere, I didn't know if I should write out the word two, or simply put the number 2. For some reason the words made it sound more official for an opening sentence, and so I will keep it.
Not the confession you were hoping for? Let it be an example of my visceral way of mind, of spontaneous scribblings.
Other such randomings on my mind...Last week my sweet grandmother passed away.
I wrote a testimony of her grace just last year. Time can be our most treasured friend and our cruelest enemy. Each of our minutes are precious and difficult.
I love seeing these pictures again, to relive these memories such a short moment ago...
It reads as follows:
Yesterday was yet another family party. What can I say, I'm half Italian, half Armenian/Native American. We do family. Yesterday was the Italian part. My Nana turned
93. The big 9-3. Much more impressive than any other number out there if you ask me (the big 5-0, 8-0? pft). It was a "surprise," yet we were all bumbling around so the “surprise” part where everyone jumps out and shouts, "surprise!" wasn't executed very precisely. But, the fact that we were there and she wasn't expecting us to be was in fact a surprise.
It was a mellow, happy time. Nana said she "felt like a queen," and truly, there's no better feeling then to see her smile so brightly and shed tears of joy, (even if it's hard to see her cry in whatever way...at least I know it's because she's so joyous.)
Yet for me, the day was overcast by a growing lump in my throat, like a balloon expanding in size the more I looked around.
As I walked in, I noticed my Aunt Helen and went right over to her. I hadn't seen her since her stroke and was anxious to give her a big hug. No one had prepared me for the state she was in, or maybe they did and I hadn't processed it. I hugged her, asked her how she was, and she mumbled. At this moment I didn’t sense anything was off yet, I just continued to ask her questions as I always did. I told her she looked spunky as usual, and she mumbled. I told her I was so happy to see her and, she mumbled. I paused. Where was the spitfire who was always cracking jokes? Where was the Auntie Helen who would rattle off a quick comment and quirky smile not that long ago? Where was Auntie Helen?
I was jarred. I just hugged her tightly again, gathered myself, realizing now what had happened, said a few more things that required no comment back and pulled my father aside so that he could explain the situation properly to me.
I couldn't help but think, how cruel that now, not only could she not speak, but she couldn’t write either. I ran to bathroom, closed the door behind me and silently cried. How fitting. For some reason I just couldn't get it together on the inside. On the outside I did the best to appear fine, but on the inside I was screaming, this is not fair.
I immediately thought to a book that captivated me so deeply, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, an autobiography "written" by man who was a quadriplegic and whom also couldn't speak. I say written because he was miraculously able to write his book through his single eye, blinking for each letter of the alphabet, with a scribe who was patient enough to somehow figure out he was desperately trying to communicate through each intended wink. He expressed his innermost feelings, mostly about being a prisoner in his own body--fully thinking, fully living, yet not. What does it mean to be human if one cannot communicate? His situation, of course, was extreme and dire, yet still. It correlates. The same principle connects with what I was feeling about my Aunt. It all just seemed so iniquitous.
Then I looked to my Nana who is blind. I thought how they both just lost their sister and this is their first celebration without her.
We were all gathered around in a circle and Nana, in her sweetest voice told everyone how nourishing this day had been for her. At that moment, I felt as though the balloon in my throat might actually be noticeable--that my throat might actually start to grow in size. I realized, she and Helen were smiling. Helen can at least use facial gestures, she can hug. They can still communicate love (as evidence shows below). Nana can talk and Helen can listen; there was even one point where Nana cracked a joke and they were both laughing (which was actually pretty funny.
I've said it before, and I will say it a million times over. These are strong women. The elderly have a strength that I admire, not with a belittling sense of that word, the cliche that can come with that word, but a true girth and weight with that word That's not to say the lump in my throat went away, or that I don't believe it's not unkind anymore. Because I still do. I can't help it. But, it helps to see the world through their eyes. To see that they are happy and grateful come what may.
My Nana is beautiful. We could all use a lesson from them. We spend so much time saying life isn't fair, instead of taking a lesson from my wise Nana, or Papa, or Aunt and just be as happy and beholden as we can with whatever life we have...making every day as meaningful as it can possibly be, and in our own way, writing our book of life with our own single struggle, blinking our way through each day, until we reach our last punctuation.
You just can't beat that smile.
This one's for you dad.
