take another little piece of my heart now baby
Here I sit in Eugene, Oregon, a short bike ride from where she lived, until five years ago today. Here I am, and she is dead, and vanished, and the link to her life cut by her son. (With some of the stories he has now told me, no wonder he was dry-eyed and wants nothing more to do with what she left behind.) There is such a sense of "too late!" now that I am here, where she lived for so long. Worse yet, I may not be able to make this move on the first try. Sooner or later jumping off cliffs can be injurious.
I walked my grandmother, age um 86? out of the church in Tacoma behind my Aunt Bet's body in 1974. My favorite of my mother's sisters died suddenly and dramatically at about age 50. My first-generation Irish-American grandma had her mouth set in a grim and determined line, and her eyes were dry. I asked her, "Gram, how can you stand it?" and she said "A little piece of me dies with each one of them [the 5 of her 8 children whom she buried]."
She was right. Grief takes a piece of your heart forever, and sooner or later you don't have any more left, and then you die.
The hole torn in my soul is beginning to scar over, but it will be an ugly mark for the rest of my life. Damn her anyway! She was an impossible person, and I cannot live without her.
I walked my grandmother, age um 86? out of the church in Tacoma behind my Aunt Bet's body in 1974. My favorite of my mother's sisters died suddenly and dramatically at about age 50. My first-generation Irish-American grandma had her mouth set in a grim and determined line, and her eyes were dry. I asked her, "Gram, how can you stand it?" and she said "A little piece of me dies with each one of them [the 5 of her 8 children whom she buried]."
She was right. Grief takes a piece of your heart forever, and sooner or later you don't have any more left, and then you die.
The hole torn in my soul is beginning to scar over, but it will be an ugly mark for the rest of my life. Damn her anyway! She was an impossible person, and I cannot live without her.