Sunday Reflections: Frailty of memory

It was an invasive sort of cold wind today. The white-gray of the sheet of sky was the same color as the bones rattling beneath my skin. While being at work helps with the chill, I become mechanical when dealing with such low temperatures. Pacing. Rubbing my hands together. Hopping. Sitting on my hands and swaying. Concentrating really hard on anything else...

...my thoughts turned to a certain person in my life before I was 16. I am terrified by how difficult it is to remember things about my grandmother. Most of my memories now are reinforced by photographs, stories, and home videos. I am having trouble remembering anything other than the memorial service... the days around my grandmother's death are clearer than the days when she was alive.

I vaguely remember this shopping trip on which she took me when I was about 15. She was the only person who would buy me the most ridiculous things just because I liked them... not because they looked any good. Of course, she would have been one to talk! She would put some of the most blindingly clashing items of clothes together and call it a day. I remember her red sweater... the one I still have... which she wore over just about everything... including a patterned white shirt with pink and purple flowers on it...

Anyway, she bought me this little pale blue dress, crazy blue stockings, and white fishnets... I wanted something fun to wear to Busch Gardens with a very particular friend of mine. I guess you could have called us the Oddball Goth Sisters, but my friend pulled it off much better than I did. My grandmother didn't bat an eyelash at me when I picked out the clothes. She just wanted to see me like something that she bought for me.

She also liked to see the things she gave me. She would notice the very next time she saw me after she had given me a present if I was not wearing it. One time she looked me over the day or two after a family celebration and said suddenly, "You don't like the ring I gave you for your birthday?" I was very confused. Must have been a pre-teen at the time. "No. I do like it. I'm just not wearing it today." She went on and on about how it was okay if I didn't... I think. All I know is I made a point to wear the stuff she gave me whenever I was going to visit her ever after.

I remember her clearest in her kitchen. For some reason, when I try to conjure a pure memory rather than one supported by photos, I see her smoking in her kitchen. The room is dark. It's night time or very, very early morning. She's drinking coffee out of that ugly, worn McDonald's mug. Her face is hidden because she is lit from behind by this garish florescent light that lined the underneath board of the cabinets. You could see her weird, fruit covered wallpaper dance in the bright light behind the hanging ceramic pineapple. I feel in this memory as though I have caught her in the midst of a sad thought before she lifts her head, realizes I'm there, and then immediately snaps into that Super Hero mode that only grandmothers pull off.

I know I liked going to her house. Even if I came out smelling like smoke (which I hated), I still liked going to see her. I don't recall ever complaining or having the feeling that I didn't want to be there. I think I had two or three sleepover parties in her den downstairs... me and some other girls were enveloped in this great, puke-yellow, circular, wrap-around sofa from the late 60s or early 70s. I think I had a birthday party there as well... I think. It's all so fuzzy...

I remember, when we were in a lit kitchen one day, that she had a miniature fit and told me to be better to my mother... I find myself telling my gdchild the same thing... she's only two, but I have to say it. I hear myself saying a small handful of the things my grandmother used to say... like the way she sang her greetings rather than flat out speaking. There was a lilt in her tone, always. I make some of the noises she invented (like this weird shushing sound through her teeth if you coughed). The way "Hi" was always a double word for her... something from her past as well as her new American language.

This woman half-raised me. The only person I spent more time with than her was my mother. I fear the frailty of my memories. How am I going to write about this wonderful person when the only thing that is clear to me anymore is the utter adoration, love, and awe I had for her... the rest of the details are dark...

...and that just reminds me how cold it is again.

(PS: Referring to last Sunday's entry: I was slightly off on my estimation from last Sunday. On my list of 20 things that I wanted to do this week, I have completed, as of this afternoon, 12 items from that list. That's not too bad for a week I mostly spent feeling ill.)