Book Chapter: Granny

Of all the times Angel had ever been hurt in her life, this was the hardest.  She had never known a loss to compare to this.  What would Granny say?  She’d been gone now going on eleven years.  Angel still had a place in the family as Granny left it.  Angel was on her way to see Granny in her last days but was two days too late.  Angel was to be there on Mother’s Day Sunday.  Granny died that Friday.

Angel had walked into a house filled with a strange stillness.  The flowers she had ordered for Granny were sitting there on the coffee table.  Why was everyone trying to act normal in front of her?  “You can cry, Angel,” her mother had said.

Pricilla had been there at Granny’s deathbed and laid her in her favorite dress.  And now Pricilla was saying to Angel, “I asked Granny to give us a sign if she was with us, to be in the wind.  And Angel, the wind has not stopped blowing!”

Angel looked at the branches covered in new May buds swaying vigorously.  The newly-planted saplings that Granny had loved so much did a wild dance.  The nature habitat garden had also just been put in.  Granny had had to watch the planting from her bedroom window as she had been too weak to get up.

Angel had no doubt that Granny knew, even then, how much Angel loved her.  Angel thought back to the last time she had seen Granny.  She had stayed with Granny and Gramps when she had come up for the high school reunion.  Granny and Gramps had celebrated Angel’s coming with gusto.  They had gone out to her grandparents’ favorite thrift shop and had lunch at the rustic bistro next door.  They had walked all around Longwood Gardens.  That was two years before…Granny seemed just fine then.  She hadn’t seemed tired at all…

And only five years later Angel was crying on the phone to her grandfather after the nightmare as he berated her in the one argument they had ever had - “You don’t know how sick she was!”  No, Angel had not known.  Granny did not speak about it.  And now in looking back, Angel understood Granny’s choice.  You have to be careful about what you reveal to others.  Sometimes it makes a struggle that much harder to bear.  Sometimes putting the struggle out there makes it that much harder to deal with.  Angel herself had learned the importance of compartmentalizing.

Dear Granny…had that been you in the wind?  Why am I being directed to cry if I need to?  What a strange thing to say.  Are the others better or stronger than me if they don’t cry and I do?

Some of Granny’s friends came by whom Angel had never met.  “There has never been anyone like her, and there never will be,” the woman said.  Yes, there had never ever been anyone like Granny.  When Angel was younger, she hadn’t always been sure how Granny felt about her, whether Granny disapproved of her or not.  But as Angel grew older and progressed to college, it was like Granny seemed to gain a new appreciation and love of her.  Granny seemed to be a little bit more proud of Angel every time she came home.  No matter how many mistakes Angel felt like she was making.

Granny’s approval of Angel only seemed to grow as Angel grew older.  As if they had more in common, more shared interests.  Angel gained more and more appreciation for what Granny loved.  The trips to the makeup counter, thrift shops, etc.  Granny seemed more and more proud to share her interests with Angel.  She seemed more proud to introduce Angel to her friends.  Angel felt appreciated and included.

Angel tried to think back on all the times she spent with Granny and Gramps on her own.  It seemed to matter in a new way.  As if she had to prove that it was justified for her to have believed she was a member of the family, as much as anyone else had been.  As if she somehow had to prove this.  But who did she have to prove it to?  Everyone had the same information.  But anything having to do with Angel’s place in the family only seemed to matter to Angel anymore.

Angel did not go to Granny’s funeral.  She decided she would rather just remember Granny as she was.

She had sat in the living room, so strange without Granny there.  Her mother, uncle and Gramps sat there discussing the funeral arrangements.  They were deciding whether people should be able to stand up and talk about Granny’s accomplishments.  Uncle Stan said no, that Granny would not have wanted that.  She was too humble for that.  All of a sudden Pricilla started yelling something about “Those damn Catholics!..” 

“That’s enough,” Gramps quietly chided her, as he would to a little girl, as he did to the daughter he had always loved and supported.  It seemed hard for Angel to believe that Granny had been so critical of Pricilla, criticizing her harshly about her weight.  Maybe that’s one reason Granny became kinder and more accepting of Angel as the years went on, as she retrospectively realized how her criticism had been so wrong.  Recognizing mistakes in retrospect, as mothers so often do.  Maybe vowing they wouldn’t do it with the next child...