(no subject)
My great-grandmother died today. Aside from being in her nineties and a “difficult woman”, she was my favorite living relative. What kills me even now is how little I remember about her. Her dancing to “Bailamos” with my grandfather one Christmas; the huge buttons on her telephone; the fanatic attention she paid to CNN; the way she used to hold my chin between her thumb and forefinger and shake her head, saying, “That’s just wonderful, dear!” That was her word; I swear, I remember this. They say she was a hellion, stubborn and willful, but when I hear her voice in my head, she’s always saying “wonderful”, and so that’s the way I’m determined to remember her.
We’re completely estranged from that side of the family, and so there’s all sorts of tension erupting. My uncles won’t attend the funeral; my mother’s caught trying to play diplomat and ease tensions between the two sides when she knows that both are wrong. For the first time, I wish I could be there for her; I feel ineffectual here, unable to focus.
It’s selfish, I know, but I hope it’s not an open-casket service. Last time I saw her, she was barely alive: unresponsive and in a nursing home where she stole men’s wallets for sheer excitement. I don’t want to see her laid out in clothes she never chose, smaller and paler than she was in life (is that even possible?).
She always called my grandfather “cherub” and he claimed to hate it; I wish I could remember what she called me. I’m no good at this.