one year later
one year ago charles and i were in bangkok and i learned that my grandad had died.
one year and one day ago we decided that i would go back for the memorial service.
one year and four days ago i was on the airplane for vancouver, stuffed in cattle class (and that actually is not because of my thighs thankyouverymuch, the flight was v. full) and trying to read a book and consider it a luxury to have 14 hours in the sky sans children.
it doesn’t seem like one year since my grandad has been gone.
i wonder what that year feels like for the surviving spouse. how can my gran not be lonely? yes, grandad was in a home for a while before he died, so she was used to living alone, but living alone is not the same as being alone. and she is. while mum and pam and mandy are very good about calling gran, there isn’t the shared history, the special songs and rituals that you develop with someone after almost seventy years of marriage. the habit of them.
i miss charles when we are out of contact for three days. a year without him and knowing only my own death would reunite us? i think the worst bit would be not being able to see his reactions: when the kids gallop to the door screaming, "Daddy!", when they set their jaws in caldwell like determination and achieve a task, the wounded look when they pat "o-eah" a bit too hard and she responds with a gentle scratch and they are convinced they did nothing to deserve it, how he gets a bit dreamy when listening to elton john, the way his eyebrows raise when anne archer is on television, how he pulls his lips together whenever i say something ridiculous and he knows it is in his best interests not to laugh, his frown when considering a problem, how he smiles when i scratch his back, give him a bum-rub or smooth his hair. "that’s the best ever"…"i was born for bum-rubbing"…"you have no idea how good that feels.."
i wish i could board a plane and be with my gran today. to look at pictures and hear stories. to scrub shelves and the fridge and take care of other chores that need tending to. to take her for a walk along the beach, like pam always does. instead, charles and i will read the letter grandad wrote us after sebastian’s birth, look at the picture of him holding sebastian and we will call gran. when you have lost great love, i hope it is comforting to know that you are still surrounded by love, even if it is not the sort you have lost.
