What I thought I knew - I don't remember anyone I love dying when I was very young. My great-grandmother on my mother's side must have died at some time, but I just remember her completely white hair in a ponytail on her small head. When I moved to Salt Lake City from the San Fernando Valley, my grandmother on my father's side died. It was 1971 and she was diabetic and had some strokes. It still feels maddening that she is gone; she taught me so much, paid close attention to me and I always thought of her as the most sophisticated and worldly of my relatives. Her name was Martha, and I am not sure I knew of her chronic afflictions, nor would I have been able to describe what diabetes meant in 1971. I do know that she made sure I had new dresses for Easter; she gave me my first bikini (how modern!) and she gave me a piece of family jewelry, a gold cross on a necklace which I wore for years, even in the shower. We called her grandmother, never grandma (the name that I identified with my mother's mom).
My neighborhood friend, Ruth, lost a close friend while we were attending Patrick Henry Junior High School. I did not know her friend and was lost as to what feeling would be appropriate for me. Ruth herself died in 2009 of ovarian cancer, and I regret now that I did not try to email or call or re-kindle the ashes of friendship. The last time I saw Ruth, she was on a layover in Salt Lake City, spending the night with my family when we were 16 and in high school. She seemed confident and in focus, beautiful and having fun. I learned a few years ago that she studied at Julliard, but became famous not for classical music but for her connection to Memphis and various styles of country music. She found an answer to "what should I do with my musical degree?"
In the early 1980's, my grandfather (father's side) died. He had lived for a while near us in Utah, occasionally serving as the substitute pastor at my father's church. He is responsible for giving me my first glass of wine and introducing me to Perry Mason and radio baseball announcers in Southern California, ("all right, OK...). I have his dog tag on a chain, which I used to wear with the gold cross his wife, my grandmother gave me.
In the early years of my marriage, I had an asthma attack that took me to the Kaiser in Redwood City, California. While waiting for my oxygen levels to increase and my breathing to ease, I listened to several nurses and paramedics discuss the arrival of a dead man who had been shot by his girlfriend. Apparently after shooting him, she called for an ambulance. There was a long argument about where he should have been taken, to Kaiser or to Stanford - which was closer, and whether or not the paramedics should just have declared him dead at the scene. Without the knowledge of this man and his life, his death and its exterior discussion seemed like a scene from a sit-com. With all my training in domestic violence treatment for men who batter (yes, it's usually men), I wonder now what extreme mental stress enabled the girlfriend to shoot her man? I wonder if she was arrested?
What I know now - Starting in 1992, I lost my mother-in-law, then my father-in-law. I got divorced, and then my mother became sick and died in 1998, my father in 2000. It's too much, and subject to another blog. They all should have been here for Krista's wedding. I'm still angry - still tensely sad and annoyed. It just does not seem fair that my children don't have both my parents or my ex-husband's parents to spoil them and educate them about the world from an older perspective. Two years ago, my boyfriend lost his father after a lingering illness that must have been very difficult for his father. We cooked for him once a week, John working out a recipe for whatever meat his dad had purchased because as John said, "I get to eat dinner with my dad." I wish my parents were here to eat dinner with me one more time; I wish we could talk about what I know now.
My grandma (mother's side) died a few years ago, about a month after we (myself, sister, brother and sister-in-law) visited her for the last time. She was 97 and lived in Fremont, Nebraska. She outlived two of her daughters and her husband. We took a hymnal to the nursing home where she lived and sang songs with her. She looked the same as I had always remembered her, except that she was in a wheel chair, not mowing the lawn. Grandma was tough, but showed her acceptance of age and life's changes: "What are ya gonna do?" she let slip during our conversations. During one visit, Grandma looked up at my brother and asked, "Bill, you're retired now aren't you?" - a pleasant surprise to Kristoph, who will probably never retire from making and recording music.
In February 1998, a few weeks before my mother died, my Uncle Lyle died. He was married to my "old" Aunt Sue and because of my mother's illness, my sister and I did not attend Uncle Lyle's funeral. We should probably visit her and have a memorial to celebrate his silliness and love for Sue. He was a smart man who apparently could not resist Sue; his leaving her at the same time as my parents left took her best friends. What's to become of us when our best friends die? The older I become, the more important are the relationships I have with family and friends. This means that when people I know die, I will be even more devastated than when I was younger. Rats! You can't have joy without also knowing despair. Enjoy your friends and relatives. Tell and show them you love them. Be fierce about it; be persistent about letting them know you care so that you don't have any regrets when someone is gone. That's what I know now.
