abuela

my grandmother on my father’s side passed away last week. i got a call while sitting at red mill in seattle eating a veggie burger. i felt guilty for not letting myself feel grief or sadness while i was away when i knew my family was having to face the situation without me. clayton and i arrived in tampa on tuesday morning at 11am. the memorial service for my grandmother was at 3:00pm. by that time, i hadn’t slept in almost thirty hours. i don’t sleep on planes anymore. so even there, i still couldn’t wrap my head around what was going on. but then my dad got up to speak. he had a page of notes but only managed to thank everyone for coming and thank my aunts for taking care of my grandmother before he was too upset to speak. people who know my father know he doesn’t cry; he doesn’t become overwhelmed with emotion. i have never seen him like that before. and so i cried, not for the loss of my grandmother, though i did love her dearly, but for my father’s loss of his mother. i can’t imagine what it feels like to not have parents on this earth.

i went to visit my grandma alvarez the day before i left for seattle. she had been put in the hospital a few days earlier, and we all knew that she wasn’t going to get better this time. she had a condition (similar to alzheimer’s) that had been getting progressively worse for the last couple of years; on holidays we never knew if she would remember who we were. sometimes tony and i were lucky and she would say “of course i know who you are!” and she would really mean it. other times we were met with her sad, hollow eyes and half-smile that couldn’t fake her confusion. but whenever my dad would come in, and she’d hear “kenny’s here,” her eyes would light up. my dad is a lot like his mother — they would sit outside and look at the grass for hours, not having to say anything and still having the best time. but my grandmother was a feisty spanish lady. she taught my little cousin curse words in spanish. she would always remind us as simply as possible that “she wasn’t dead yet.” at the hospital, i was alone with her. the room was dark and she looked like she was sleeping. she was small and weak and the immediate shock of the state she was in upset me. she was always sassy and so full of life. now she was lying there struggling to breathe. i tried to talk to her, but i don’t handle stuff like that very well. i didn’t know what to say and it felt strange to talk loud in that dark room, so she probably didn’t hear anything i said. i would cry every few minutes when i would really look at her and know this was the last time i would see her. my dad said she had been reverting back to speaking spanish, so i tried to speak some spanish to her. i couldn’t remember the word for granddaughter, so i told her i was the daughter of kenny. i left when the nurses came in and started feeding her.

i did love my grandmother, and i will miss her. but my heart aches for my father who must quietly miss her every day.