It happened fast yet slow—an abrupt change, yet one I should have known was coming.
(click:?Page)[On one Sunday, my dad FaceTimed me. This wasn't anything new—we always FaceTime on Sundays—but perhaps the sameness contributed to the shock.]
(click:?Page)["Grandma's going to go into hospice care soon. The doctor signed off on it today."]
(click:?Page)[(link: "Oh.")["Oh," I reply.
(live:3s)[It's silent for a while.]]]
(click:"It's silent for a while.")[["Can I come and see her?"]]
(set:$macOn to true)"Of course you can."
(click:?Page)[And so the next morning, I packed my stuff up and drove straight up north, back to my hometown.] (click:?Page)[I got to see her for the last time on Tuesday, the day after.]
(click:?Page)[For the rest of the week, I kept my brother company at home. My parents had to stay at grandma's house to take care of her.]
(click:?Page)[[It was a long week.]]She died on Saturday. (click:?Page)[I'd made it just in time,] (click:?Page)[because the day after I had spoken to her,] (click:?Page)[you just couldn't understand her anymore.] (click:?Page)[She couldn't speak coherently.]
(click:?Page)[Before I was born, she and my late grandpa had moved south with my parents, so that they could be around when I was born.] (click:?Page)[My grandpa died when I was a baby.] (click:?Page)[People say that he'd been waiting for me.]
(click:?Page)[I kind of like to think that maybe grandma had waited for me, too.]
(click:?Page)[(go-to:"Foyer")]It's the day before I'm gonna drive back down to school.
(click:?Page)[I'm in grandma's house and it feels weird.]
(click:?Page)[Mom wants me to see if there's anything I want to take with me—the house is my parents' now, so I guess that means everything in it is, too.]
(click:?Page)[I'm not sure where to check first.
[[Go to the living room.]]
[[Go to the kitchen.]]
[[Go to the garage.]]
[[Go down the hall.]]]The living room is basically the foyer. When you enter the house, in front of you is a sitting area with a brick fireplace, surrounded by a vibrant red couch and two red loveseats. In the middle of it all is a wooden coffee table.
The couch has a woven blanket draped over the back of it, with decorative pillows on either end. The loveseats have pillows, too—they're all patterned in a very grandma-y way (for lack of a better word.) Atop and around the fireplace are some potted plants and some sculptures.
Past the sitting area is another sitting area, but with a TV.
[[Check the couch.]]
[[Check the coffee table.]]
[[Check the fireplace.]]
[[Go down the hall.]]
(if: $catHair is true)[[[Go to the other side of the living room.->Living Room 2]]]My mom's favorite room, I would assume: it's a pretty nice-sized kitchen with all the fixin's, so to speak. Plenty of storage, a big sink, a big fridge, a stovetop oven and a microwave, an espresso machine...yeah. Right past the kitchen is the dining room, in pretty much the same room, just separated by half a counter making a walkway. The dining table is old and wooden, and on either end are big, antiquey, red-upholstered chairs. At the back wall are shelves stacked with liquor and knick-knacks.
I spent a lot of time in here too, when I was younger. I think it was around the very beginning of high school that I started coming here less and less. Although there's memories aplenty, there's really nothing here for me to take.
(link:"Look in the shelves by the counter.")[(text-colour:yellow)[I'm not sure why I go to look in here until I see a notebook tucked in next to some dry foods, and I feel a lump in my throat.
(click:?Page)[Grandma and I used to cook together, back when I had to use a stool to reach the countertops. This notebook was our "cookbook"—grandma would print out recipes, or cut them out from boxes, or have me write them down, and then we would paste them into the notebook as a record of sorts. A collection of what we made together.]
(click:?Page)[(text-colour:cyan)[A keepsake].
(click:?Page)[I want to cry, but the tears won't come out. I just sit there and look at the notebook like an idiot.
(click:?Page)[In the end I don't even take it.]]]]]
[[Go to the living room.]]
[[Go to the garage.]] The garage is directly connected to the kitchen. It's not that exciting to me, but it might be for someone who uses their garage to keep their cars. It used to serve that purpose, of course, but eventually grandma stopped driving, and now there's a table set up in the middle of the cement floor with lots of stuff on it: birdseed, crafting materials, this and that. The garage is haphazardly separated by a(text-colour:cyan)[ large set of shelves], stacked full of things like (text-colour:cyan)[holiday decoration]s and stuff that you don't really use that often except for a certain time of year. There's a fridge and a freezer (separate,) and a plastic (text-colour:cyan)[mannequin] situated next to the table in the middle.
(link:"Check the fridge.")[(text-colour:yellow)[Full of (text-colour:cyan)[soda]. Grandma never drank soda—that being said, my brother didn't either. It was for me.]
(link:"Take a Coke.")[(set: $coke to true)[(text-colour:yellow)[I take a can of Coke and crack it open right then and there. I'll drink it as I look around the rest of the house. The caffeine is gonna make me jittery, but it's fine. (if:$rootbeer is true)[...Damn, why did I take two sodas?]]]]
(link:"Take a root beer.")[(set: $rootbeer to true)[(text-colour:yellow)[I take a can of root beer and crack it open right then and there. I'll drink it as I look around the rest of the house. We had root beer floats the other day, but there's still some left. (if:$coke is true)[...Damn, why did I take two of these?]]]]]
(link:"Look at the mannequin.")[(text-colour:yellow)[It's clothed in a woven sunhat and a long, airy dress patterned with blue floral. I remember when grandma first got it—she wanted me to paint it and customize it and make it look pretty, give it my own personal flair.
I never did. I can't remember exactly why. I was probably worried that it'd take too long, that I'd run out of time before I had to go back to school, that I'd be unsatisfied with the result...
(click:?Page)[Pretty stupid excuses, honestly.]]]
[[Go to the kitchen.]] The hall is...a hall. It's rather narrow, with off-white carpet that's gotten to be a little rougher over the years. There are paintings and photographs on the wall, and against the back wall is an old bookcase filled with even older books.
[[Go to the guest bedroom.]]
[[Go to the office.]]
[[Go to the master bedroom.]](set:$catHair to true)
It's covered in (text-colour:cyan)[cat hair]. I grew up around a lot of cats.
Gordon got too excited and would scratch, so I was kind of scared of him. Charlotte was big and fluffy. Her claws were sharper than Gordon's, but she didn't get as playful as he did.
Ringtail is who's around today—he's a white and orange cat with notches in both ears. There's a little black kitten around the neighborhood, but Ringtail always chases it away. He's pretty territorial.
(click:?page)[(text-colour:yellow)[There's nothing here for me to take.]
[[Go back.->Go to the living room.]]]The coffee table is (text-colour:cyan)[real wood]—I'm not even sure it has a varnish, but at the same time, I dunno how else it could've survived this long without wearing down or rotting. I know I've left my fair share of condensation on it...
On Christmas, this table used to get filled up with (text-colour:cyan)[lots and lots and //lots// of snowglobes.] Big and small, they covered the whole tabletop. Some of them were cheap and simple, but some of them were huge, not to mention intricate—a couple would even double as music boxes that'd play out a little scene when you wound them up.
(click:?Page)[(link:"Open the drawers.")[(text-colour:yellow)[There isn't much inside the drawers. The most notable thing is a (text-colour:cyan)[who-knows-how-old matchbook]—a few of them, actually. I would swear that Grandma hated throwing things away, but she definitely did. Maybe she just had weird standards for what to keep and what to toss. I wouldn't know, and I guess I never will.
There are also some (text-colour:cyan)[knick-knacks], but those aren't anything new. There are knick-knacks all over the house.
I don't want to take any of this. My parents wouldn't throw away the knick-knacks anyways, and I'm not gonna use any matches.]
]
[[Go back. ->Go to the living room.]] ]As far as I can tell, the fireplace is real brick—it's never used real logs, though. There's a switch next to the hallway you can use to turn it on and off.
We always celebrated Christmas Eve here, and we opened presents by the fireplace. The kids would sit on the brick and the adults would spread out around the couch and loveseats. I'm an adult by age, but I was still a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, to everyone that visited—my place was always by the fireplace. Even if I happened to have a glass of champagne.
(link:"Check the left side of the fireplace.")[(text-colour:yellow)[Tucked on the brick next to one of the loveseats stands a large, tall pipe of sorts. It's a didgeridoo. You can pick it up and play it, but it's hard not to knock anything over. I can't remember if grandma got it while traveling or just got it online. I feel a little bad.]
]
(link:"Check the right side of the fireplace.")[(text-colour:yellow)[On the brick next to a small side table is a statue of the Buddha—one of many present in the house. It looks like it's made of stone. I don't think my grandma had them for any religious reasons, but...who's to say. Who's to say.]
]
[[Go back. ->Go to the living room.]] This part of the living room is directly connected to the kitchen. There are two blue recliners on either side of the sliding glass door, both equipped with a remote to control the mechanisms inside—they were pretty elaborate, and they needed to be, for my grandma's sake.
There's an old, old armoire against the wall. The TV is inside, and there's a smaller set of cabinets underneath with some storage.
(if:$catHair is true)[There's a cat staring in from outside the sliding glass door.
[[Let the cat in.]]]
[[Check the armoire.]]
[[Go to the kitchen.]]
[[Go down the hall.]]It's Ringtail! When I open the door, he comes right in and flops down on the carpet in the middle of the room. I can't really help myself around cats. I always end up wasting at //least// 5 to 10 minutes just hanging out with them.
(link-repeat:"Pet Ringtail.")[ Pet.]
(after:5s)["Do you know what's going on?" I ask him. He doesn't reply, of course.]
(after:10s)["Do you miss grandma?"]
(after:13s)[He sure as hell doesn't reply to that one, either.]
[[Keep looking around. ->Living Room 2]] The armoire is wooden and old—who-knows-how-old, like a lot of things in the house are. The way it latches closed is weird: there are two groups of two curled-in pieces of metal on the top and bottom of the frame, and then another piece of metal on the top and bottom of each door, and the metal pieces are supposed to sort of slide in between each other and catch. I think. However it works, you have to really yank it open and really shove it closed.
The TV is strikingly new—a far cry from the antiquated look of the armoire itself. The volume is set really loud so that my grandma can hear it. The lower cabinet is closed shut.
[[Check the lower cabinet.]]
[[Go back. ->Living Room 2]] This is the room I used to stay in when I would sleep over at grandma's house as a kid. There's a big queen bed against the wall with a window, facing a set of drawers with a TV perched on top of it. There are paintings in here, too, one on either wall: I think one is of my grandma when she was younger, and one is of my grandpa.
(link:"Open the drawers.")[(text-color:yellow)[In the top two drawers is a lot of (text-colour:cyan)[swimsuits], big and small. This room also served as the changing room for when we wanted to go in the pool, so we ended up deciding to just keep some swimsuits here for convenience. There are some swim trunks that haven't seen the light of day for a while...and some size-small swim sets that haven't seen the light of day for even longer. There's no way they'd fit me anymore, but they sure got some good use when I was a kid.
In the bottom drawer is a bunch of (text-colour:cyan)[VHS tapes]. All of them are kids movies, like "Aladdin" and "Lady and the Tramp." E.T. is in there, too—I've never considered that a kids movie, though, because he scared the shit out of me when I was a kid.
(click:?Page)[I briefly consider taking a tape or two, but...if anything, they're more likely to get use here, where they can actually be played.]
]]
[[Go back to the hall. ->Go down the hall.]] As I step into the master bedroom, I feel...weird. For lack of a better word.
To be honest, it's always felt a little weird to go in here for me. This is where grandpa died, and when I was a kid I thought it was haunted. Grandma died in here, too.
It's a different kind of weird now, though—there's a sort of calm in the room that's like a blanket. I can feel it on my skin and at the back of my head. It's like my hair is standing on end but it isn't, some sort of post-apprehension sensation, potent but barely-there at the same time.
(click:?Page)[...After I look at this room, I'll leave. I think I'm reaching my limit.
[[Check the walk-in closet.]]
[[Check the standing closet.]]
[[Look outside.]]]Just like the upper, main cabinet, you have to yank a little to get the lower cabinet open. I haven't opened it in ages. Inside are stacks of video tapes and DVDs, as well as some well-loved board games: "Candyland" and "Chutes and Ladders," as well as a metal box of dominoes for "Mexican Train."
(link:"Look at the board games.")[(text-colour:yellow)[I can't remember the last time I played one of these. They got a lot of use when I was younger, during (text-colour:cyan)[holidays] and stuff when my cousins would come over. As grandma got older and was in pain more often, she started inviting people over less and less. Dominoes was more of a family thing, though—we would all sit (text-colour:cyan)[around the table in the backyard] and try to make the longest "train." I forget exactly how it worked, but you were dealt a hand and had to connect the dominoes to each other from a starting domino...or something. I would have liked to play it again some time.
I want to leave these here. It's not like we're not going to be living in this place—there'll be chances enough to break them out again...
]]
(link:"Look at the tapes and DVDs.")[(text-colour:yellow)[Lots of them—as a kid I always felt like these were the DVDs I couldn't look at. All the kid-friendly tapes were in one of the spare bedrooms, where I would stay in whenever I slept over. The one that stood out to me was "(text-colour:cyan)[Sex in the City]." I think when I was younger I took the title very, very literally.
I'll leave these here. I don't even have a DVD player, much less a tape player.
]]
[[Go back.->Check the armoire.]]The closet in the spare bedroom is filled with clothes grandma wouldn't wear very often. Mom said that clothes and accessories and stuff was what she really wanted me to take a look at, so I decide to rifle through it all.
(link:"Look at the purses.")[There are more purses than I'd expected. Part of me feels a little silly for *not* expecting it—back when grandma wasn't in pain all that often she'd been very active and very fashionable. There are a lot of bags to choose from, ranging from real leather to wool, from plain, strappy purses to ones hand-embellished with beads and other bling. She always liked to be bold. You can tell just by looking at this.
(click:?Page)[There are three purses that catch my eye: a red leather one, a small black one with a silver peacock brooch attached to the flap, and a tan suede one with a brown leather strap, turquoise beads sewn in patterns all around the lip.
I hestitate taking them. It feels odd going through someone else's closet. Would she want me to take her clothes...?]
]
(link:"Look at the coats.")[There are just as many coats as there are purses—a lot. Not all of them are coats, either—there are a few shawls, a few ponchos, that sort of thing. They're very "grandma" in a way that I almost feel is more exclusive to me, in the sense that they're not muted in color or aged in pattern. There are long coats in black and red velvet, shawls with vibrant, hand-embroidered flowers, trenchcoats and silky coverups...
I mean, I'm sure other people have grandma's like this, no doubt. But it feels a little personal somehow. A bit special.
(click:?Page)[I don't take anything, though.]
]
[[Go back.->Go to the office.]]The office functions as a second guest bedroom and is simultaneously, in my eyes, both more full and less full than the first guest bedroom. It's probably because they're both oversaturated with kid memories for me—in here was a desk and an Apple Mac computer and a printer and other arguably-boring stuff for a child. It's a smaller room, too, so there isn't as much space to move around. There's also a sliding-door closet in the only bare wall, which makes it feel even less spacious.
(link:"Check the desk.")[(text-colour:yellow)[It's a super messy desk. I feel like it's looked the same for at least a year, probably more. It's covered in lots of bills and stray papers and such, and there are pen holders at the back, pressed against the wall.
On the far right of the desk, next to a lamp that's definitely older than me, is a little wooden porcupine. Its spikes are made of colored pencils. Grandma got it for me.
She kept it here so I would be able to draw when I came over. I'll keep it here so I can keep using it.
]]
[[Check the closet.]]
[[Check the Mac computer.]]
[[Go back to the hall. ->Go down the hall.]] (if:$macOn is false)[The computer is turned off. I'm done here.]
(if:$macOn is true)[I was never an Apple person, but a lot of my family is. The Windows interface is a lot more familiar to me, but I still managed to dick around on this thing when I was younger...to some extent.
I feel a little weird poking around on it now, but she didn't even use it all too much, especially in the final few years of her life—it was mostly used by my (link-reveal:"grandpa.")[ (...But he isn't my biological grandpa. My biological grandpa died when I was a baby, so I don't know him outside of stories.)]
(link:"Open Safari.")[There's nothing much here. I have some memories of coming into here as a kid and going on roleplay forums, and adopt-a-virtual-pet websites, embarrassingly enough. I would "take care of" my own horses and dragons and write stories together with people I never really knew.
There was a point in my life where this was fine, but I eventually became *too* asocial, I suppose. My mom would get mad at me and my grandma didn't like it.
I haven't quite grown out of virtual pets and roleplaying online either, to be truthful. For a brief moment, I wonder what grandma would think of that.
]
(link:"Check the downloads page.")[There are no downloads. There were, at some point. I liked to come in here and play games, little indie games made with RPGMaker that're free to download. I would delete them afterwards, so I didn't ever make much progress.
I feel like my interests were something I could never talk to my grandma about. She didn't want to hear about video games or any of my other nerdy crap like that. I feel like there's a sort of irony in the fact that this itself is a game, in that sense—I've been apprehensive the whole time, honestly, wondering if she'd hate this and maybe hate me.
(click:?Page)[The feeling lingers.]
]
[[Shut the computer off.]]]
[[Go back.->Go to the office.]](set:$macOn to false)[I'm done with the computer. There's nothing more to look at, and it probably be good to give it a rest for once. It's one of those computers that always just sits in sleep mode and never really turns all the way off. Maybe it's juicing up the electricity bill, too...]
[[Go back.->Check the Mac computer.]](if:visits >= 2)[We don't need to do this again. I'm not opening that door!
[[Go back.->Go to the master bedroom.]]
]
(if:visits is 1)[Oh, the standing closet. Remember when I said I thought this room was haunted? This here is the perp.
(click:?Page)[Oftentimes when we came here, everyone would be outside in the backyard, and I'd feel the need to take a bit of a break from socializing and sun. I'd go back inside by myself and sit around or lay around, draw or go on the computer...and that's when the spooky stuff started happening (of course while no one else was around, to make it all the more harder to believe.)]
(click:?Page)[One time, though, I was with my brother.
We were playing inside, some sort of kid make-believe. Our journey brought us to the master bedroom, and to the towering standing closet.]
(click:?Page)[It's made of dark, laquered wood, and it's taller than the doorway and a mere foot away from tapping the ceiling. It only has one, big door, with a brassy handle, covered completely by a massive mirror. As kids it looked even bigger, since we were even smaller. Grandma never opened it...]
(click:?Page)[...And children tend to be very curious.
I'm not sure if the goal really *was* to open the thing, but whatever we were doing in there, we ended up by it, staring in the mirror-door, poking at the handle but not quite peeking inside. The house was quiet—everyone else was outdoors, after all.]
(click:?Page)[The silence was broken by a noise coming from inside.]
(click:?Page)[(transition:"rumble")[BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!]]
(click:?Page)[Like something trapped and trying to get out.]
(click:?Page)[We ran away screaming. I've felt a permanent sort of apprehension near the master bedroom because of that. It's about the only time I've really bought into the idea of supernatural stuff.]
(click:?Page)[...]
(click:?Page)[That being said, I'm still not opening it. Sorry.
[[Go back.->Go to the master bedroom.]]]](if:$ring is true)[I step outside the bathroom and stand there for a moment. ]The master bedroom has a sliding glass door on the far wall that leads out to the backyard. It's beautiful. (if:$ring is true)[I find myself drawn to it.]
(click:?Page)[There's a slab of pavement that makes up the back deck of the house. An overhang of roof protects it and its inhabitants from the elements: a glass dining table opaque with age, an woven swing hooked to the rafters, cradle-like in nature, and a worn cat bed covered in hairy, orange evidence of its use.]
(click:?Page)[Past the pavement are terracotta-colored stairs leading to the pool, which is itself surrounded by grass—real grass, mind you, and not turf. Plant life was an important part of the backyard, and I think it was by far the place that grandma was most proud of.] (click:?Page)[A canopy of trees creates a tunnel to a wooden gazebo on the opposite end of the yard, a tiny putting green next to it. Flowering shrubs create a natural wall around the perimeter of the yard, and sitting opposite to the gazebo—although it's covered by a small, vertical fountain in the view from the bedroom—is a large oak tree, surrounded by further organic shrubs and untilled dirt.]
(click:?Page)[This was about where I was standing when I spoke to grandma for the last time—right near the sliding glass door.]
(click:?Page)[[There's just so much I didn't get to express.]]The walk-in closet is right past the doorway to the attached bathroom. It's in kind of an awkward position—you can't have both doors open at the same time or they'll get in each other's way. Or maybe you can, you just have to do it...strategically.
The closet door is also notably heavier than the door to the bathroom itself, because there are multiple hooks and hangers perched on the top of it. On the outside of the door, there are coats and sweaters hanging off, lumped between two metal hooks, and on the inside are some over-the-door storage containers, filled with jewelry and brooches and other little accessories...ones that probably have specific names, but I don't know them. And of course, within the closet itself is clothes, clothes, clothes.
(link:"Look at the clothes.")[My grandma had a bold, eccentric fashion taste. (if:(history: where its name contains "Check the closet.")'s length >= 1)[The closet in the office was just the tip of the iceberg—that only had some accessories. ]In here are all the base pieces: shirts and pants and shoes and such and such and such. Right in the middle, directly across from the doorway, are some cashmere sweaters. Well...not //some//. A lot.
(set:$cashmere to true)[I remember my mom saying that my aunt was looking forward to taking these, so if I wanted any, I should pounce.
(click:?Page)[...]
(click:?Page)[It feels weird thinking of it like that, but I take a few with me anyways. One red, one blue, one gray. They feel soft but a little bit itchy. Again, I can't help but wonder if this is...okay.]
]]
(link:"Look at the over-the-door storage.")[Jewelry, jewelry, and more jewelry. It's impressive, especially since this isn't the only place where she stored it. The thing draped over the door has numerous little pockets, and inside each pocket is either a pair of earrings or some other miscellaneous baubles—organized chaos, if you will.
I like earrings, so if there's anything I wanted to take for myself, it'd probably be here. But...I'm looking for a keepsake, not stuff for my own use. Even so, (link-reveal:"Even so, something catches my eye.")[
...My god, it's a Josten's high school ring. Class of '59. I'm a little in awe—I had no idea Josten's had been around that long! Scamming people since the beginning of time, I suppose...or rather, just the beginning of the American education system.
(click:?Page)[(set:$ring to true)[I take it gingerly. It goes in my pocket. I guess I've finally found a keepsake. [[I suppose I don't really need to snoop around anymore...->Look outside.]]]]]
]
[[Go back.->Go to the master bedroom.]]I remember when I first went over to this house, while my parents were still staying here to take care of her, she'd been asleep. I had to wait for her to wake up to speak to her, and even then, I couldn't properly collect my thoughts.
(click:?Page)[My dad led me into the room, and I just couldn't stop crying. I'm an expressive crier, too—all hands-waving and nervous, choked laughter in-between each word. Whatever came out of my mouth was a garbled mess, but I remember one thing clearly:]
(click:?Page)["I've been a stupid kid for so long, and I'm finally growing out of it, and I was really looking forward to Christmas this year since I'm not a stupid kid anymore."]
(click:?Page)[There was a period of time were I didn't want to go to grandma's house for our Sunday dinners, (link-reveal:"and so my parents didn't make me come.")[ I wish they did, though. I was in a poor mental state and someone was taking advantage of that, effectively and horribly. I'm not sure if grandma ever knew that was the reason I wouldn't come. When I think about it, it's really upsetting.] When I finally was, in theory, up for it—that was around when we stopped having them. She was in pain a lot and having people over wasn't fun anymore.]
(click:?Page)[And even so, //even so,//]
(click:?Page)[[part of my grief is coupled with feelings of resentment.]]This piece deals extensively with the death of a family member and has some allusions to suicide and suicidal ideation.
[[Thank you for telling me—I still want to read it.->Intro]]I feel horribly selfish about it all. I feel like it's close-minded and rude to be thinking about the ways I //resented// my grandmother, when she so very recently passed from this world. (click:?Page)[It feels acrid and conflicting.] (click:?Page)[Grandma had made me cry plenty before this moment,] (click:?Page)[and I wouldn't be surprised if I'd made her cry, too.]
(click:?Page)[One night she made me cry really hard.] (click:?Page)[She asked me if I'd remembered something during a family event and then cut me off before I could reply: "Of course you don't."] (click:?Page)[I had to excuse myself to cry in the bathroom. I felt so horrible—of course you don't remember, because you don't care about your family, because you don't commit these things to memory, because you're always on that damn phone. I felt guilty as hell, and it took me a while to come back out.]
(click:?Page)[On the way home it was just me and dad in the car, and he told me about how when he was a kid in theater, she would laugh at him while he practiced his singing in his room. She made fun of him for not sounding good, not pulling any punches. I was...shocked, but not surprised.]
(click:?Page)[He said that she's always been that way: a little too crass, not knowing when to omit things or when to just not say anything at all. He told me about the times she made my mom cry, too.]
(click:?Page)[[I'm not sure it made me feel better, per se, but thinking back on it...]]Well, even if she wasn't always the nicest person in the world, even if maybe she wasn't the best mom to my dad or the best grandma to me and my brother, my dad still took care of her like crazy. (click:?Page)[My mom still cooked for her and kept her house clean.] (click:?Page)[My brother was inspired to apply to more universities because of her.]
(click:?Page)[The pest control man was invited inside for a meal and expressed sorrow for our loss.] (click:?Page)[The gardener still comes around and waters the plants, and he even helped my dad with taking over the maintenance and care of the yard.] (click:?Page)[The mortuary people were kind.] (click:?Page)[Ringtail the cat still lays in his bed by grandma's door.]
(click:?Page)[And I'm still writing this.] (click:?Page)[If I really, really resented my grandma, I wouldn't be mourning her at all—I wouldn't have so much to say.] (click:?Page)[Loving people isn't blindly accepting them—loving people is keeping them in your life and them keeping you in theirs, even when we go through bad times, even when we have flaws (like everyone does.) Loving people is different for everyone, and I know when I die, I wouldn't want people to dumb me down to a flattened, bland caricature of all my supposed "best" traits. ]
(click:?Page)[I think it's beautiful that I am not perfect, and that my grandma was not perfect, and in the end, [[we still came together]]—even if it wasn't exactly how I wanted it to go, even if our time was cut short.]One of the last conversations we had was just me and her, alone in the living room. It was mostly her talking, but I think maybe she had a lot to get out...and I also think that (link-reveal:"she knew a lot more about me than I'd told her personally.")[
I'm not sure why else she would have talked about her own experiences with suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, with depression, with self-doubt, with all the lesbians and gay people she knew in her life and how she didn't care who I liked as long as I looked out for myself and knew my worth.
(click:?Page)[(I'd never come out to her. I'd never once spoken about my mental illnesses with her. My mom has a big mouth...and yet somehow, I wasn't upset that these thinks had been told to her without her knowing.)]
(click:?Page)[That was another time she'd made me cry—out of gratefulness, out of joy. She would've come to my wedding and made a great in-law.]
(click:?Page)[[I kept telling my dad how much I appreciated that conversation, and according to him, she kept telling him, over and over again, how much she loved it, too.]]](click:?Page)[...When I went back to our house, my childhood home, my mom questioned why I didn't take anything. I didn't really know what to say.]
(click:?Page)[Later on, we went back. I took a lot more clothes and a lot more jewelry, at my mom's behest. I wear a lot of it day-to-day, especially the earrings. (if:$cashmere is true)[I wear the cashmere sweaters when it's chilly in my apartment.] (if:$ring is true)[The high school ring is one of the only rings I own that //actually// fits me.]]
(click:?Page)[It's all nice to have, sure, but really...]
(click:?Page)[...I think the best keepsake is her memory.]
(click:?Page)[I stayed overnight at the house for the first time since I was a kid over Thanksgiving break. I felt a sense of calm. It was a sort of non-closure closure, in which I realized that maybe "closure" isn't something that I necessarily need.]
(click:?Page)[[I love my grandma, and she loved me.]]Thank you for reading.