My grandmother was the most amazing woman I, and many others, have ever met. She was a funny, proper German-English woman who loved high heels, plunging necklines and red lipstick. She always had a smile on her face, a bounce in her step and a loving nature that could reach inside of anyone's soul and hold them together. She used to sing me to sleep, make paper dolls with me in her kitchen and do my makeup before going out because she loved to see me in her red lipstick. She sang "Paper Doll" by Frank Sinatra, in her own way, to me when I was sick or sad, and ran her fingers over my head until I fell asleep on nights I was homesick.
My best memory of my grandmother was from when I was a teenager. I was graduating from the 8th grade, and I was going to be wearing a navy blue dress. She came over the day of, as I was getting ready and presented me with a blue heart necklace; a replica of the one from Titanic. It was ugly. And I hated it. I refused to wear it, even though it "matched the dress perfectly." We fought for hours over this damn necklace, to the point where she tried to sneak up behind me and put it on while I wasn't looking. In the end, I won. She hated me for a moment for my stubbornness, but loved me enough to let it go.
I regret a few things concerning my relationship with my grandmother. One of those things is the time I took for granted when I was in my early teens. My grandmother had, in my immature brain, broken a promise to me, my sister, my mother and my grandfather, by marrying another man.We all hated her new husband. He was abusive towards her, emotionally and mentally, he wouldn't dare lay a finger on her or he'd have the wrath of the entire family on him. She came over one day, and she handed each of us a cheque or $100. I was immediately skeptical, but thanked her and kissed her goodbye as she left. The next day, she called and said she had married him. We were not invited, we had no idea she had even agreed to marry him. She did it behind our backs and at the time, I couldn't understand why. I mailed her cheque back to her and reused to talk to her. Because of my stubbornness, I lost three years with my grandmother.
She divorced her husband a few years later, after we had made up, and met another man named Bill. I didn't like him at first. I was on edge and wanted nothing to do with him because he was just another guy coming to do what her second husband did: take my grandmother away. It took about a year, when I was 24, to come to terms with the fact that her new boyfriend wasn't as bad as I thought. He took me to the vet when my cat was sick. He drove my disabled mother to her appointments and he was there with my grandmother while she had her falling spells and had to go to the hospital. How could I hate a man who loved her so much?
I visited my grandmother the day before she died. She wasn't conscious. She didn't know I was there but I kissed her forehead and told her I loved her. Being there when she stopped breathing was too much and I spent the day drinking and crying with my sister, who was just as heartbroken as me. My mother and father went to the hospital, said goodbye and watched her leave this world.
At her funeral, I made a scene. The pastor who was performing her eulogy knew nothing about her, her life or her life with my grandfather. He called her "Betty-Anne," and my grandfather "Buzz," instead of "Bus," which was his nickname. Little things they may have been but they set me off because the man could have at least done some more research and allowed us to have that one moment of remembrance without fucking up their names! I corrected him in a very loud voice and left the chapel, crying and in need of escape. I called my best friend, who called our mutual friend, and he came and picked me up. I couldn't be in that funeral home anymore and I cried in his car all the way home.
On Christmas Eve of 2014, the second Christmas without her, me and my sister went to get our first tattoo's. Mine, was for her. For the best memory I have of her. Two blue hearts are now permanently on my wrist. One for her, and one for me. I look at it and get emotional sometimes, but I wouldn't want it in any other place. My grandmother may not have been perfect, but she was the only one I knew growing up. She helped shape who I am, and I wouldn't trade in any amount of time I've had with her in the world. Her memory lives on, and I'll always have paper dolls and Frank Sinatra.
No comments:
Post a Comment