I slip on my high school class ring,
Hoping for some sort of time machine -
But the memories are faded now, the feelings almost gone.
For some reason I am surprised each time that it still fits,
Probably because it doesn't feel like the same finger anymore.
My heart, my head, my body have changed so much since then,
I can't believe that it really happened, much less that it happened to me.
I used to pine for my first love, to ache for my foregone innocence;
But they are both lost to me.
The names are slipping, the faces blurring - the black and white have turned to grey.
But the heart is not so easily put out.
It guides me through the fog to happy memory;
My crush in seventh grade, singing "If you want my body" in the back of the school bus;
My first love calling me beautiful after I was hit by a car,
when I couldn't stand to look in the mirror.
The people are gone, the relationships extinguished,
But the fire is never-ending.
It does not sustain me. It does not define me.
But it will always be a part of who I am.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Publix
It's strange the symbols which take you into another universe where the past becomes the present and you yearn for its return. I walked into a Publix tonight where I encountered a little old lady with white curly hair in a blue overcoat and plastic hat to keep off the rain. That little plastic hat took my breath away - suddenly that little old lady was my grandmother.
My grandmother was obsessive with keeping weather off of her head (her sinuses) and her Panteen-sprayed hairdo. When it rained she was in her plastic hat and raincoat - whether she was going to church or the supermarket. When it was cold the plastic hat covered a scarf which was wrapped around her head like a bandage. She looked ridiculous, but it was so normal I was never embarrassed or ashamed. I thought it was cute, and that all grandmothers dressed that way.
My grandmother died a few years ago when surgical staff accidentally left a sponge in her lung. She would have died within a year or so of lung cancer, but the sponge shortened her time to one week in a coma. I had never seen anyone die before that 3rd of July. She was on a respirator, so after the nurse or doctor (I can't remember which) told us "she is gone," her little lungs (or lung) kept filling up and deflating with oxygen. I wondered how you could be dead in such a state, but she was just the same. After a few minutes, they finally turned off the machines and it felt a little more real. I saw my father cry, my brother cry, and I think I shed a few - but nothing like I thought. I was more mesmerized by the fact that after death we kept making her breathe - for someone who struggled so much the past week to do just that, it just seemed strange.
When people die I miss them, but it takes years for me to understand how much. It took a little old lady in a plastic hat for me to cry about my grandmother tonight. I wanted her alive to hold my baby for the first time. I wanted her to give me advice which I would ignore. I wanted her to challenge me about the religious questions I will face raising a daughter in an interfaith home. No one else has the guts to do it, as they probably should not. But, I miss my prying, confident, black-and-white, know-it-all grandmother.
My grandmother was obsessive with keeping weather off of her head (her sinuses) and her Panteen-sprayed hairdo. When it rained she was in her plastic hat and raincoat - whether she was going to church or the supermarket. When it was cold the plastic hat covered a scarf which was wrapped around her head like a bandage. She looked ridiculous, but it was so normal I was never embarrassed or ashamed. I thought it was cute, and that all grandmothers dressed that way.
My grandmother died a few years ago when surgical staff accidentally left a sponge in her lung. She would have died within a year or so of lung cancer, but the sponge shortened her time to one week in a coma. I had never seen anyone die before that 3rd of July. She was on a respirator, so after the nurse or doctor (I can't remember which) told us "she is gone," her little lungs (or lung) kept filling up and deflating with oxygen. I wondered how you could be dead in such a state, but she was just the same. After a few minutes, they finally turned off the machines and it felt a little more real. I saw my father cry, my brother cry, and I think I shed a few - but nothing like I thought. I was more mesmerized by the fact that after death we kept making her breathe - for someone who struggled so much the past week to do just that, it just seemed strange.
When people die I miss them, but it takes years for me to understand how much. It took a little old lady in a plastic hat for me to cry about my grandmother tonight. I wanted her alive to hold my baby for the first time. I wanted her to give me advice which I would ignore. I wanted her to challenge me about the religious questions I will face raising a daughter in an interfaith home. No one else has the guts to do it, as they probably should not. But, I miss my prying, confident, black-and-white, know-it-all grandmother.
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