"Passage "
I was driving a crappy rented Hyundai down Valencia just as dusk was turning the desert sky to crimson and violet. Tucson was my home. I grew up here. All those precious, dreaded, awkward, discovery years. Puberty, first kisses, school yard bullies, marijuana and such. It all still feels painfully familiar, like an angry ex-lover that refuses to leave. She still tugs at me, longingly stares. She wants me back. I want her to let go.
I, however, returned to her this time. I returned to say good-bye to my grandmother who passed away the Sunday prior, May 31, 1998. Her passing was not unexpected. She had been ill a long time. Born Marion Correnty, the mother of my father, was cursed with a defective heart. Fitted with a pacemaker in 1958, she was one of the first people in the country to undergo open heart surgery. She was expected to live, with a good diet, lots of exercise and a little luck, another ten years.
She lived forty years. She was a strong woman.
Her fortitude was tested again in 1963. That year, my grandfather was crushed between a truck and a paving machine, shattering nearly all the bones in his legs. The hot asphalt slowly poured down his back while he was trapped. He wasn't supposed to live. The doctors told him so. They told him he was the first of three that year who survived such an accident. Then they told him he would never walk again. He told them to go to hell. After he began to take his first steps, they told him he would never walk without the use of a cane. Personally, I've never seen him touch one. In fact, he didn't even opt for handicapped parking until he was nearly sixty-five.
The accident, however, destroyed his career, and the recovery left him incapacitated for years. And left my grandmother as the breadwinner and authority figure for their two young boys.
She, as always, persevered. She was a very strong woman.
Sadly, her health began to deteriorate several years ago. I knew. We all know. I didn't want to know. But I did. We all did. Things got bad in January. When her heart really began to fail, my father packed up my grandparents and moved them to Dallas to live with my family. Several weeks later, my grandmother underwent surgery to replace the valves in her heart; surgery for the second time in her courageous life. But after forty years of fighting, she was tired. I could hear it in her voice. See it in her eyes. Sad eyes. Tired eyes. I knew it then. But, like before, I didn't want to know. Didn't want to see.
She never recovered.
She died after ten weeks of hospitalization. A horrifying hospitalization, she was attached to appalling laboratory of plastic tubes and needles and lights and motors and monitors that manage all the functions and movements we take for granted. The decision was made to stop the pain. It had to be made. My grandmother had stopped fighting, and she was clearly not recovering. And the machines only turned her life into a science experiment. A side show. It was time to let the great contradiction end, let her take her final breaths on her own. My grandmother was a very proud and upright woman. She did not want to live like that. We couldn't stand to see her like that.
We prayed for recovery. She prayed for peace.
I learned of the decision Tuesday, May 26. Brianne had just agreed to go to Laughlin with me. We were going with about a dozen other people to celebrate my friend Kelly's birthday, so I was floating around in a contented, narcissistic little bubble, intoxicated on my own pretentious dreams of romance and sexual conquest.
How quickly it burst.
That red light on my answering machine was beckoning. A nightmarish reminder that like it or not, I'm part of something bigger and on the same ride as everyone else. Blink, Blink, Blink. Fasten your seatbelts.
My mom was on the machine. "We decided to turn off the ventilator. Call home." At that moment, deep within my chest, a part of my soul began to shrivel and die.
I'm not naive. I'm not a fool. And I'm not one to hide in the fury of life's storm. If you close your eyes to the adversity, the darkness is your own creation. Cower, and the gale will erode you where you stand.
So I began to take what little action I could. Put things together. Get organized. Call Brianne and let her know our plans might change. Call my parents. Where am I going when the end comes? Am I flying to Dallas or Tucson? Perhaps Connecticut? Call my boss, let him know I will be out on sudden notice. Call Monica and Mike, tell them I may miss their wedding just a week away. Call Dave in Tucson. Tell him to expect me. How are my ducks? In a row, or in a pile?
I got the news Sunday morning. I was indeed in Laughlin; gambling, drinking, water-skiing. Trying to have fun. While there, I was calling home twice daily for updates. When I called Sunday morning, my sister Paula asked me if I was driving. And again, I knew. But I didn't want to know. Again, the urge to close my eyes.
"Grandma died at ten today. Will you be all right?"
"I'm fine."
And that cancer that had been eating away at my soul left a hole, black and hollow, where a life had once been. A life that always smiled, always listened and always shared. A life that gave far more to me than I ever gave in return. She never took - never even asked. A life that loved me so unconditionally. This light I carried in my heart yet I never knew I possessed it. This light now extinguished. And in its place, black.
I went for a walk. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to walk. Shake it off, Jim. You saw it coming. You know you're strong.
With every step, I stared deeper into that darkness. With every step I felt the hole growing larger. Loneliness and sorrow began to bleed from that wound. And no matter how well I had prepared myself, no matter how well I tried to protect myself, I couldn't stop the blood. I couldn't hide from the feeling of emptiness. No matter how far I walked, I couldn't leave the sorrow behind. It followed. And the blood still flowed, dark and thick, spreading over my heart, darkening my soul.
I was broken.
I stopped at Kelly's room. I knocked. A hesitant, unconfident knock. Kelly answered with her typical gregarious smile. I tried to answer. I tried to talk. But the bandages I placed on my soul had saturated, and the grief tore at my throat. And Kelly knew.
She threw her arms around my neck, pulling me close, and I crashed into her. I just collapsed and held my friend to me and let the anguish escape. Escape through my tears. Escape through her embrace. I didn't need an explanation, a justification or an apology. And Kelly didn't offer any. I just needed that embrace - to stop the bleeding. A life to hold on to, if only for a moment. or two. A crushing reminder that I was not alone.
Kelly gave that to me. And I am eternally grateful. I called Kelly later to say "thank you". I don't think I'll ever have the words to truly express what she meant to me, what she did for me. Perhaps I trivialize the event by trying. Perhaps I end up sounding like a fool. But I will always love her for that. And I think that's important for people to know.
So, I found myself back in Tucson to formally, publicly say good-bye. Celebrate my grandmother's life and share my grief with other people who loved her. I'm also here to represent my father and my family who were not able to participate. They had their own memorial in Dallas.
The funeral was a strange, almost surreal affair. A lot of people I did not know or did not remember shaking my hand, offering their apologies and thoughts on life and death. It was a Catholic service. My grandmother was a devout Catholic. I can't remember her ever missing a mass. I'm supposed to take heart that she is with God, in a place of eternal life. This is what she believed. This is what they believe.
What do I believe?
I don't know any longer. I know I take a lot for granted. And I know I took her love for granted. I know I won't ever speak with her again, at least not on this plane of existence. I know the lifeless body of an amazing human being lays still in a simple wood coffin. A coffin I helped carry to her grave.
Long after everyone left for the reception, I watched them lower the coffin. I stared into that grave, and thought of the complexities and mysteries and contradictions of this carnival ride. My uncle mentioned she loved roses. I pulled a rose, a beautiful, vibrant, crimson rose, and tossed it into the grave. I can't explain what solace I thought I would get from that action. Perhaps I wanted to leave her a part of me. Perhaps I wanted one last chance to share something beautiful with her. I can't explain it - I wish I could. But in the end, all I did was drop a dying flower into her tomb. And the action brought more grief than comfort. For when I heard the sickening thud as the flower struck hard the coffin below, the bandages I had so carefully placed over that hole were all torn open again.
And again I cried.
You never can tell what will affect you. The sound of that rose falling into her grave was more than I could take. A week prior, hearing my young niece, just 3 years of age, explain in her simple, innocent logic, how Grandma was sick and going to live with God was more than I could take. My father broke down when his mother looked at him in recognition for the last time. My sister broke down when our grandmother's death provoked consideration of our own mother's inevitable passing. We all were changed. We all were hurt. Yet none in the same way.
Her death was a strange phenomenon in many ways. When people would hear about my loss, and subsequently offer an explanation or their beliefs on life and death, it all sounded trite and insincere. At the time, I really couldn't care less how someone else felt about the afterlife, or how her passing was "for the best." It all comes down to blind faith, and it certainly doesn't change the fact that she is gone and nothing I can do will alter that reality. The most apropos response I received, and not surprisingly, received from all the people I love the most: "I'm sorry. That really sucks." And you know what? It does. And that's all someone needed to say for me to recognize that they understand and connect. That's it; that's all.
I left Tucson again, the morning after her funeral. I said good-bye to my grandmother like I said good-bye to my hometown. I can't live there any longer. It holds only memories for me. Nothing more.
The bleeding did stop. The hole, however, remains. And I can't ever fill it or close it. A life once filled that space. My grandmother. That life is gone. She is gone. I, however, won't live in that hole. I won't stare at it's walls, feel trapped by it. I'm sure I'll visit it again; I'm sure I'll stumble into it when I least expect it. But I'll let it lie and will continue to build around it. It's part of who I am, as she was part of who I am.
I'm going home.
