I have been trying to think of a way to write about Grandma and those days, but it seems like a blur , it is so different than any other experience I have ever had. When Grandpa died, it seemed somehow okay, it seemed like time, there was sorrow, but still this sense of laughter in the family, you know that sense, that no matter what we happy, we are lively, we are strong. There wasn’t that. There was nothing, I kept thinking “oh, she’ll love the way Asher talks, the way Emmet is playing with that truck, the way Fra is smiling.” I couldn’t, I can’t believe she wasn’t there. The truth is I could barely look at the casket, look at her. You know the dizzy hot feeling you get when you know something is wrong, is bad. Every time I looked toward her, I felt that way.
But there was more. I kept waiting for the tears, the time when I get to just cry and let the tears run down my face and not stop. But that didn’t happen, because I had to rush from the funeral home, and but a apron on over my good clothes and Judy and I cooked and set out food and people came, then there where children to wash and put to bed, then Uncle Bobby called and was confused and drunk and cussed at me. And then it was moring and Chris and the boys and I rode with Uncle Markie and he was barely holding on. You want to know what my clearest memories of that day are, well on the way to the funeral home we drove past the doors of St Andrew’s and the trees all around were absolutly brillant yellow and it was windy the little golden leaves were falling like snow, falling sidways across the those big doors. And what else? That during prayers at the funeral home before leaving for the Mass, Fra was cranky and sleepy and I stood and walked and he cuddled up and went to sleep in my arms, so that when I looked at her face for the last time it was with a sleeping baby in my arms. I always knew it would be, I had always seen myself standing there with a baby, but I didn’t cry then either.
Whe we arrived at St. Andrews, all the little old rosary ladies stood on eitherside of the aisle as they carried her in. They were like an honor guard I stood in the back, bouncing the baby, holding the phone. It was like somesort of lifeline, that cell phone connecting me all the way across the ocean , a life line--the baby, the phone, my sister who probably couldn’t barely hear, but I felt like she was there with me, smirking at the priests long rock and roll hair and hippie sandles. But it was more, when it was time for communion, I took the children up, I did it at Grandpas funeral, too, and asked the priest to bless my children, which he did, but very quickly since Fra was howling like a banshee and the other two were just confused. Did I tell you Asher helped carry up the communion wine? Mallory helped her know what to do, of cousre.
I remeber the year I got married, I felt this whole new connection to Grandma, I am like her in some ways, there is only Chris for me, we’ll be two old people someday with our horde of family. But never have felt more connected to her than standing in the last pew, walking up and down the aisles and by the holy candles trying to sooth a tired baby. How many times had she done that? In those very aisles, with that same sense of love and impatience? How many funerals did she hold back her tears in order to sooth the children, to set the table, make the supper, find the childrens clothes, straigten his tie, light the candles, do the dishes and fall asleep to tired to cry even then? Well, this was my first time for it.
I was the last family out of the church, I went to get my coat and bag from the pew, and allthose little rosary laidies were there, so and chattering like little birds “Oh , here dear, what can we do? Take her coat, no t”ake her bag, isn’t he a sweet baby! He’s just tired, just hungry, isn’t he?” (nods, nods) We just love those bagpipes, didn’t we?” (nods all around) “was she irish?”(nodding, again--”was she, was she?”) “She was.” I say. “Ah , thats where she gets her wit” says one sagely. So I thank them again and they nod and I go out into the bright day with those pretty yellow leaves falling in my hair like rain drops and Fra is finally smiling and looking up at the trees and then,
it was over.