October 26, 2019

I restarted this post several times over the course of the last two months. Writing about life and the loss of it before seemed like an objective sense of emotions I needed to address, an insight I was compelled to provide. But the last two months have brought death closer to my door than warranted — from family to former coworkers to family members of dear friends. It’s been an overwhelming sense that I’ve reached the age where the empty chairs around the family table will consistently remain untouched. 

I remember being knee-high to a duck’s ass the first time I realized I was here for some reason. It was a moment that changed me. It might have been the surge of adrenaline coursing through my veins before I had the vocabulary to accurately describe what I felt. My five or six-year-old self sat on the fabric armrest of Granny’s 1985 Monte Carlo. It was the only way I could see over the dashboard and be in the know. We were leaving from visiting one of Granny’s former employers in the nursing home. It amazed me how my grandmother was much older than the frail woman but moved with the vigor of a woman half her age. 

No sooner than we neared the train tracks, a few men on bicycles road up, causing Granny to brake and let them pass. The arm of the train signal lowered on the car. The red lights flashed. The train whistled. The  car’s engine died. Granny panicked. She turned the key and the engine sputtered. I breathed heavily. She pleaded with the car. The train horn whistled loudly, approaching our stalled car. Granny began to pray and ask God to spare her only granddaughter, to start the car. And sure enough the car started. We moved just in time. 

I was crying. Granny was crying. “I hope you know that you have a purpose here and that life can be gone in the blink of an eye,” Granny wiped her face. She was silent, allowing her resolve to return. We drove home in silence, save her humming a spiritual tune. 

At that age, I didn’t fully understand that death was a permanent thing. Maybe it was the cartoons or the video games that made me think life could be reset. If you died it wasn’t forever. It also could’ve been because I loved the movie The Goonies and Goonies never say die. But it was at this age and being sidekick to a 76-year-old woman that I grew closely acquainted with the art of saying goodbye.

A few weeks later, Granny and I went to visit the same older woman again. But this time her room was empty, her belongings sorted into different piles. Two middle aged women discussed selling a little stool for a dollar. One of them paused in their sterile conversation, completely void of emotion, to acknowledge my grandmother and tell her that the woman had passed. No one called her. No one let her know that a visit wasn’t needed. That she didn’t have to wake up early that Saturday morning to prepare Chicken and Dumplings to bring. Neither of the two women, who Granny knew by name, who knew Granny came to visit took the time to call her.

With the passing of a loved one, I always feel like one of the many candles illuminating my life has been blown out. Sometimes it’s a surprise, an unexpected extinguish. Other times it’s a prolonged sense of watching their flame flicker until it illuminates no more.

The first emotion that arises is sadness. Its uncomfortable yet familiar embrace, envelopes me. Tears fall from my eyes. I taste their saltiness in the back of my throat. I instantly miss my lost person. I feel a hole where their candle once stood tall and shined brightly. Memories we shared flood my mind like pop-ups on a computer screen. Tears continue to slide down the curves of my face. I think about times shared, the nostalgia of watching their favorite films, eating their favorite meals, laughing at anecdotes and inside jokes. And while I am in these moments of the past that feel protected and locked away, the sadness takes over at the reality of not being able to create any new memories. That the best part of our relationship is behind us. An emptiness arises that I did not invest more time or make more of an effort to create more memories. That makes way for the next emotion — guilt.

In the particular instance of losing my cousin, I feel overwhelmed with guilt. I’d tell her that I’d come to visit and took time for granted. I could name a number of different reasons about why the trip never was planned, why the interest and intention were there but never follow through to make it happen, or even why I feel guilty for never fully investing the time to share flowers with her while she was here instead of exchanging pleasantries and laughs on Facebook. I feel convicted that I should have done more.