My life has been in constant turmoil for so many years, the peace I feel today is uncomfortable in my body, foreign, like a pebble in your shoe- round and soft, but not welcome.
Sitting in the dappled light of my little side of the canyon, oaks shading and protecting me- I smell the same sweet spring scents of my childhood with my grandparents not 7 miles from here.
I had to rectify a wrong. My uncles and aunt, nor my mom ever add my grandfather’s death date to his shared tombstone with my grandmother. Seven years later, I had to make the arrangements.
Seven years after they took their belongings and hid them away in their dragon’s horde. Seven years after they pit sibling against sibling, refusing to come together or acknowledge that our huge family may all have claim to the memories.
Seven years after they waited 14 months to put my grandfather’s ashes in the ground for some pathetic, half-assed, unorganized, and disrespectful service I refused to attend because I’d been at that site with my grandfather’s ashes the year before. My aunt had brought them to the grave side for him to “visit” his girl, my grandmother, on her birthday. They wouldn’t let me dig a hole and put him in that moment. The same man who pitched actually fits waiting 6 weeks to put her in the ground and several times during the service shouted out to “put her in the ground” while we said our good byes. He was held hostage by his children, all well over 60 years old, because couldn’t respect his wishes. He lived in a box, in a bag, in my aunt’s altar of crystals. Even in death she leeched what she could from him.
Every cell in my body has been remade in the time it took to make things right.
I knew it would be done wrong when my uncle poured a shot of tequila down my grandfather’s throat after he’d died and said, “Now you’ll finally take a shot with me.”
I knew it would be down wrong when I arrived late, missing his final breaths, racing a fucking monsoon of rain to get there, the heavens sobbing at his exit from this earth, to find someone had used a red handkerchief to keep bis chin closed. Leaving him there in the living room like a haunted doll, while they had tequila and reminisced, telling memories but screaming relief he’d finally gone as they sharpened their tongues for the war they’d fight with words like razor blades against your throat.
I knew it would be done wrong when my uncle asked me not to close the account they’d made for me so they had more time before the told the bank he was dead.
The home my grandfather built was eventually sold to a cousin for his sister to escape an abusive marriage. While the gardens fall into disrepair and the magic of that land evaporated to normalcy, the work of his hands stays in our bloodline. The daughter of the oldest son, who drained the accounts, showed up late to his father’s funeral, who had hid from his own mother when she had Alzheimer’s because he was too weak to see her like that- his line holds the keys.
I wish desperately I was lying about any of this, exaggerating, telling tales. In fact, I’m holding back so much truth it feels like I’ve painted them in a rose colored light.
Yet, I did what none of them could do. I gave peace to my grandfather. His death date has been written. Carved into the stone he designed for my grandmother and also himself, under which they’ll spend eternity together.
If they would have let me, I would have done it all at the beginning. Same for the pathetic service they gave for my grandmother, which I was directed to do nothing for. Then that same uncle came to me, late on arrival- of course- and asked me, ME, the niece he resented outwardly, “So what’s the plan?” At the cemetery, everyone seated, and waiting for his funeral to start… the one he planned. The pamphlet my aunt was making about my grandmother, which I offered to complete, was noticeably absent because after 6 weeks, she could not make it happen. Her son did craft a pen, made from the wood of the wisteria Gram loved so much for the guest book. That was gorgeous, heartfelt, and kind. But he was good. An anomaly in the family.
I wore a black dress that was both too tight and too short, lost in my grief, and sang the lullaby she sang me after reading the speech I’d prepared. No one else prepared much… the uncle with his board of photos taped up on black paper. That’s it.
I knew that day, when we were back at their house, and I put the food out, washed the dishes, made sure everyone was fed and emotionally taken care of, assigned the younger generations the jobs of putting away lunch, putting out desserts and picking up everyone’s plates, that I had taken my grandmother’s place as the matriarch, skipping my mother and aunt, as they played grieving daughters with smiles on their faces, soaking up the lavish attention of those who “deserve” it. I was the one who was expected to hold the family together. I was the one my grandmother knew could take her place.
The horror was palatable. I didn’t want it. I couldn’t find an ounce of me that wanted to take her place with these people, these strangers, with whom I shared blood. I didn’t want to be their new mom.
But I was. I was until my grandfather died and I was punished for it. Punished as I was treated as a thief, a liar, and later as the only thing keeping my narcissistic mother together. Vilified for coming weekly to clean and care for them both, then only my grandfather. Accused of stealing their wedding rings and wish a cousin would die of a brian tumor.
The guilt they felt made them cruel.
I had no guilt. I was there. I cared for them because I loved them. They knew that. He knew that. Nothing else mattered.
We are now in year eight.
In a few days, my little family will take the pilgrimage to see the final gravestone. I’ll bring my rake and do what my grandparents had done and tend the family plot. No one has done it since they died, and I know I shouldn’t be surprised. I expect people to do the bare minimum of their responsibilities, yet they don’t. Even when they tell the world they will. Perhaps, especially in those cases.
My little family speaks to no one but my sister now. No cousins. No parents. My son has a rage so white hot inside of him for all they did not do. The hurt they caused. The lies they told. The consequences the he did not face. He is my grandfather’s namesake. When it’s done, it’s done. They had that in common.
He’d been at my side often in taking care of them. He knew. He was there. The others weren’t.
We get to say our true goodbyes, proud, correctly, and in knowing we did what they both wanted. I finished it. They can rest in peace.
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