when I was seven I started going along to church camp with my grandmother every Summer. It was an entire week of rustic dinners and nightly worship services that sometimes went on until dawn. I wholly believed all of the words that floated into and through my brain during those weeks, but benefited more in their ability to buy me a week away from my mother and her husband beating on each other than I did from their message.
Each year my grandmother and I would drive up into the park together, an hours long session I would spend talking, and she would spend listening. It was the high of having someone's undivided attention. It was being in the presence of someone who believed in me, and loved me unconditionally, and had never once raised her voice at me. On several occasions over the years, the thought crossed my mind that I would have to go on living a large portion of my life without her at my side. And so I collected pictures, and letters, and souvenirs of her always, all the while ignoring the voice inside of me that wasn't sure I would ever be old enough, and mature enough, to go on living without her. I didn't know where to look, or if I would ever find, the strength to do anything at all besides curl up next to her and die myself.
The last time I had any notable contact with my grandmother was over two years ago. She came back east for a thirty day visit, during which it was my job to care for her every weekday. It was a miserable experience, and hyper emotional for both of us. She left at the end of her visit having already said her goodbyes to me. We stopped calling each other. We stopped sending cards, and pictures. We stopped visiting each other. It's easy to look back now and see that she was weaning me off of her. She forced me to talk and grow closer with my own mother, to rely on her instead of on my grandmother. It worked, it seemed, because when I arrived in sacramento last spring, I was fully prepared to step up and see to her arrangements and wishes and details. I was ready to let her go. I knew i would be okay.
And I returned home as if from a business trip, focusing only on my mother picking up her own pieces. I had emerged unscathed. Today on a whim, I plugged the picture Cd from my trip into the laptop, and was struck with how much I miss her. I thought of me as a little girl, wishing nothing more than to keep her in my pocket for forever. I thought of me as a little girl, who knew I was wishing for the impossible, but didn't let it stop me.
