Goodbye Wishes from the Sea
LJ Idol - Week 1: Saying Goodbye
You could ask me to remember the phone call, but I can't. Everything is a blur in that moment when I learned my grandmother had died. I can't even remember if I cried, but I want to think I did.
I do remember asking if I should go home. I was in Miami; my first adult vacation on my own. I was going to spend a week away from New York, and the increased battle that was going on with my father and his siblings. They had been fighting for years on my grandmother's health care and what needed to be done.
Three years prior, I was the one there when she accidentally set herself on fire. She was in her late 80's and Alzheimer's had taken away most of what I had loved in her. There was no spoiling anymore - no sweet treats left on my plate when my brothers and cousins were told they were gone. Little gifts given to me for no reason at all. No hugs and kisses and I love yous. Those had stopped years ago. A dangling cigarette dropping onto her sweater sent her to the nursing home that would her residence for the rest of her life.
I hadn't seen my grandmother in about a year. It was too hard to walk into a room and see a shell that didn't remember your name. I tried to smile, to remind her of my name once more while leaving the flowers my mother had bought. I was just finishing my teenage years then and I didn't understand what was happening to her.
10 years later and I still don't really know.
My mother told me to stay in Miami and keep enjoying myself. The funeral was going to be a mess (which it was), and she would rather I not be there. Your grandmother wouldn't want you to stop living because of her death.
It was drizzling as I walked along the beach that afternoon. I just needed to get out of my room, no matter what the weather was. Finally I just sat down to watch the boats in the distance while the water lapped at my feet. It was then I felt the object brush against my bare foot.
I reached into the water and pulled out the strangest shell I had ever seen. It looked like a piece of shell or rock, and there was a twig growing out of it. However, the twig didn't feel like wood, and the edges were smooth.
That was the moment where I felt a hand close over mine. There was no one there that I could see, but I knew my grandmother was there, and this was her way of saying goodbye to me.
One last little treasure just for me.
You could ask me to remember the phone call, but I can't. Everything is a blur in that moment when I learned my grandmother had died. I can't even remember if I cried, but I want to think I did.
I do remember asking if I should go home. I was in Miami; my first adult vacation on my own. I was going to spend a week away from New York, and the increased battle that was going on with my father and his siblings. They had been fighting for years on my grandmother's health care and what needed to be done.
Three years prior, I was the one there when she accidentally set herself on fire. She was in her late 80's and Alzheimer's had taken away most of what I had loved in her. There was no spoiling anymore - no sweet treats left on my plate when my brothers and cousins were told they were gone. Little gifts given to me for no reason at all. No hugs and kisses and I love yous. Those had stopped years ago. A dangling cigarette dropping onto her sweater sent her to the nursing home that would her residence for the rest of her life.
I hadn't seen my grandmother in about a year. It was too hard to walk into a room and see a shell that didn't remember your name. I tried to smile, to remind her of my name once more while leaving the flowers my mother had bought. I was just finishing my teenage years then and I didn't understand what was happening to her.
10 years later and I still don't really know.
My mother told me to stay in Miami and keep enjoying myself. The funeral was going to be a mess (which it was), and she would rather I not be there. Your grandmother wouldn't want you to stop living because of her death.
It was drizzling as I walked along the beach that afternoon. I just needed to get out of my room, no matter what the weather was. Finally I just sat down to watch the boats in the distance while the water lapped at my feet. It was then I felt the object brush against my bare foot.
I reached into the water and pulled out the strangest shell I had ever seen. It looked like a piece of shell or rock, and there was a twig growing out of it. However, the twig didn't feel like wood, and the edges were smooth.
That was the moment where I felt a hand close over mine. There was no one there that I could see, but I knew my grandmother was there, and this was her way of saying goodbye to me.
One last little treasure just for me.