WHEN SHE’S YOUR GMA
When your grandma is who you call “G-ma.”
When you’re seventeen and going through your first breakup and staying at Gma’s house and you’re sobbing to her about the split with your first love—a girl.
When Gma says, “I don’t understand the whole lesbian thing, but I love you anyway.”
When you fall in love with Gma in that moment.
When everything just clicks between you and Gma after that.
When, two years later, you live with Gma to feel sane again after two suicide attempts prompted by a broken heart from a woman you loved who didn’t love you back like that plus the too many mood-altering drugs you put inside yourself to escape the melodramatic, emotional pain.
When you return home a week later because you were itching for more of those drugs and getting kinda annoyed with Gma’s incessant questions about if you were hungry, if you needed anything, but you still love her anyway.
When throughout college you take road trips during spring break out to Colorado from Texas to see Gma and stay in your grandparents’ mountain cabin and every time a new friend meets Gma they say, “Your Gma is the fucking coolest person.”
When you can’t do anything but agree.
When again you stay with her at different moments in your life when you need a break and again you always leave about a week later because she just pesters you with her incessant questions about if you’re hungry or need anything because that’s what Gma does.
When every time you see Gma she does the same thing: hugs you, pats you on the butt, asks if you’re hungry.
When every time you tell her you aren’t hungry, she lists off the food she has in her house, a list that always includes some ice cream and cookies and strawberries and cereal and cheese and bread and she can fix you something to eat real quick.
When you wrote a funny essay about her sex life that started with a play-on of the words about how she “taps your ass” when she sees you—an essay that her drunk friend read in your book and slurred to her about it over the phone and Gma didn’t find it funny and said really mean shit to you in an email about it and all of your “dark moods.”
When in that email she forbids you to ever write about her again.
(When you realize that currently—right now—you are going against her wishes and yet you’re fairly certain she wouldn’t mind.)
When you apologize but don’t really talk to her much for a few months after that, but the next time you see her, you hug her and she pats your butt and it’s okay, she loves you, and she says it’s all “water under the bridge” now. “You hungry?”
When you stop being a vegan and start eating hardboiled eggs for the protein but—gasp—you don’t know how to make hardboiled eggs so you call up your Gma to ask and she gives you instructions on how to boil eggs in water without the slightest hint of you’re a dumbass in her voice.
When, one year later, you stay with her for a week because she’s ninety-two and lonely because your Gpa died five years ago and she thinks she is going to die soon and you’re starting to go through a divorce and just need her Gma wisdom about life and how to live it.
When every morning for that week you make her some decaf coffee and she’s the only person you know who drinks decaf coffee in the morning and you peel oranges for her and arrange the slices in the shape of a smiley face on her plate because you both think that’s funny.
When after you stay with Gma for that week, you don’t leave frustrated because of her incessant questioning because this time you’ve gotten accustomed to her so all you leave with is more love for your Gma than you’ve ever felt before.
When you give her a final hug goodbye after that week and she pats your butt and she says, “I just love having you here. Please come back. I’ll pay for it. Money’s no use to anybody if it’s just sitting in the bank.”
When you don’t know it yet, but that will be the last time you see her.
When a year later you’re dying to see her because she’s dying and you can’t afford to fly back to see her and she’s too deaf to talk on the phone so you can’t ask her to buy you a ticket and your mother and aunt won’t buy the ticket because they say that Gma says to stay put and work on your marriage and she’ll be fine.
When you know she’s just saying that because she doesn’t want to be a hassle because you’re just like her.
When a few months later Gma is for real dying and you again beg to come but your aunt and mother insist you shouldn’t come because “it will just be too much going on.”
When you can’t actually remember what they said but basically they thought that you coming to see your favorite person—your Gma—before she died would be a hassle and you find that funny in a not-funny way.
When Gma dies and you hadn’t seen her for over a year—not since that week when you stayed with her and made her orange smiley faces every morning and she told you to please come back and keep her “cump-hun-ee” (said in her Oklahoma accent, even though she’d been living in Colorado for decades; somethings just don’t die, too bad Gma wasn’t one of them).
When you cry and cry and cry because Gma’s dead, even though this is not a surprise.
When you get a ring made that’s engraved with “Gma” and put it on your ring finger because this is after she died and after your divorce and when you’re struggling with not calling up your abusive ex who continues to hurt you every time you see him and how your best friend witnesses this and says, “Your Gma wouldn’t want you to live like this,” and how you know how right your friend is that it makes you sob, so you get the “Gma” ring and wear it every day, never take it off so you can remember her and her spirit and the love you shared with her because it sustained you because she was your Gma.
When you sob about not being allowed to see Gma one more time before she died and your mom and aunt say you’ll have a private memorial with the family and bury her ashes in the mountains later on so you can get some closure then.
When you start looking forward to that memorial that very moment.
When it’s been almost two years since Gma died and that memorial has yet to happen and your sister (who didn’t get along with Gma) is in Colorado visiting with her kids (who barely remember their great-Gma) and you aren’t there and you feel a little left out but you were in Colorado last year so you guess it’s time for your sister and her family to have alone-time with your mother.
When, during that trip, when your sister is in Colorado visiting with her kids, you receive this text from your aunt: “Just wanted to let you know that I did an impromptu burial of my parents’ ashes at the mountain house since the youngest generation was here to participate. Will be sending you video of it via Dropbox soon.”
When your initial response is: “Wow. Ok.”
When you prepare the reader right now for how quickly your storm of anger can come crashing in.
When your next responses consist of: “Do you really think the great-grandkids care about them that much compared to how much I cared about them.” And: “Which granddaughter has pictures of their grandparents hanging on their walls and refrigerator? Not the one who attended your impromptu burial.” And: “I don’t want to see the video.” And: “What is wrong with your head?”
When your aunt responds with how it’s about closure for her and your mom with their parents.
When you reply with: “Yeah. And I wouldn’t have denied that for you. Memorials, funerals, burials—all of that is for the living. And so you just cut me off from having that. That’s just messed up.” And: “I mean, what was just so fucking dire that you couldn’t wait or even just tell me that you were doing it? Why not do it on one of the many trips when I was there? Because of great-grandchildren who honestly probably don’t give a shit? Or because of the other granddaughter who they didn’t have a connection with? Again, what is wrong with your head?”
When your aunt again says it’s not about you but closure for her and your mother, plus it felt like a convenient time to do it and that you can come see the burial spot when you are out there next time.
When your response is “FUCK OFF” because there really isn’t anything more eloquent or adequate to say in this situation.
When you say after that: “Hope you got your fucking closure.”
When that day and days later and even as you write this and edit it, you try so hard to forgive but you can’t let go, you can’t Gma-it and just say, “it’s water under the bridge” because this is about your Gma and your connection with her and so how can you?
How can you let go of Gma?
