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| Iliniza Norte and Sur, Ecuador, Photo: Michael Gaige |
Last summer, my Grandmother Beatrix
entered hospice. In September she celebrated her ninety-eighth
birthday. She slept more and ate less, but still managed to tell a
joke to anyone who had the time to listen.
I visited her in February, and found
an old woman, owl-like in the slow turning of her head. I held her
hand; she oscillated toward me, unseeing, smiling at my voice. I
squeezed and her own fingers echoed my pressure.
"Does anyone know a joke?"
she asked, her own way of navigating the landscape of grief, her
daughter's, my aunt's.
Later she grew serious, reserved. She
asked who had been with Gail when she died. The next morning, after
breakfast, she silenced us all as she announced "I have a
daughter who died three days ago." Through this landscape, no
two travelers follow the same path.
"I love you, ma chère
grand-mère" I whispered, kissed her papery cheek. I knew I was
saying goodbye.
She began to recede further, sleep
longer, lose her tether on this life. On the twentieth of July, as
she slept, she stopped breathing.
The landscape I explored this past
week was familiar and alien. I down shift, I perform each moment in
my day with the deliberateness of Tai Chi. Thoughts slide from my
mind before they fully form, my brain replaced by shifting sand. But
as I travel, no chasms breathe longing into my path, no sharp stones
of grief catch me off guard. Instead memories surface that speak of
celebration and gratitude. This path through the landscape of
grief unfolds more gently before me.
And you, who embark on your own
journey, Bon Courage.
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