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.