Guardian
I haven’t spoken to my grandmother since three days before she died on April 18, 2007. It’s been 11 years since I told the woman who was my everything that I loved her.
Memory is a funny thing. A delicate balance of what we know and what we choose to recall about a person, a moment, a date, a time.
I can see her, standing in a house dress, calling QVC on a dandelion yellow phone attached to the wall in her tiny Bronx apartment, cord stretched taut across the dining room as she stood at the kitchen window, calling down to me in the playground: it was time to come inside. I can smell her, baby powder and Estee Lauder, sleeping on the trundle bed next to me in the living room, because the apartment had one bedroom, and my father’s godmother, Francis, lived in the “master”. I can feel her hands, wrinkled, but strong tickling the sides of my knee, wincing as her nail accidentally dug too hard, whining because she was the only person that let me get away with it.
I remember the day I loved her most: the evening she let my mother, who I was only supposed to see under court supervision, come to her apartment to be with me when my dad wasn’t there. She sat at the kitchen table and read the paper aloud to Francis, as my mother held me on the couch and asked me if I missed her. I looked over at my grandmother and she was snarling.
I remember the day I hated her most: the evening she let my mother, who I was only supposed to see under court supervision, come to her apartment to be with me when my dad wasn’t there. The moment my mother left, my grandmother reminded me that my mother was never going to be there for me in the way I needed her, and to let go of the notion that she and I would have a normal relationship. I hated her in that moment, because it was the first time someone had said that directly to me, and I knew she was right.
Bernice was the first woman to show me what it meant to be a woman, lessons I was learning before I could understand, things I would recall years after she’d passed. She taught me how to be a mother, for when that time comes — tough, unapologetic, honest. Loving. Flipside, she taught me what not to be — conditional, malicious, sharp-tongued. I don’t always heed the latter, but I relish the former.
My grandmother moved across the country to Las Vegas in an act of irrationality when she turned 75 in search of dry, clean air; the polluted, humid Bronx in an apartment laced with mold and grime had given her a serious COPD diagnosis. Bernice and Francis up and left, but after Francis passed in 2005, my grandmother knew it was time to come home to NY.
My father and step-mother had hushed discussions about moving her to our hometown, discussing who would care for her, mulling the logistics. I never believed she’d live in the same town as me — the last time that happened, I was 5 years old. Somewhere deep down I knew it wouldn’t come to fruition.
My father passed me the phone on April 15, 2007 and told me to speak to my grandmother. She was long winded, so I rolled my eyes, and prepared for a 20-minute conversation at minimum about her day, her week, her doctors, how her housemate was a pain in the ass, which she would say loudly enough for the housemate to hear. At 79, she was going deaf, so I could hear Alex Trebeck clear as day blaring from her television 2,605 miles away — I would always tell her to turn it down so she could stop shouting into the receiver. She would complain about her sinuses — she always did. Having inherited her allergies, I understand why. I was prepared for this conversation to happen. And it did at first, but then she paused and said, “I’m not going to make it.”
“Huh?” I replied, half listening.
“I’m not going to make it to New York. My breathing, the oxygen…it’s not going to happen.”
I assumed she was talking about the impending 6-hour flight, if she were to move back to the east coast. Bernice was ill, but she was strong-willed and fiercely independent. She always helped herself, but if she couldn’t she had no problem asking for assistance, loudly and assertively. I reassured her that she would be fine, people flew with oxygen tanks all the time and the airport staff would take good care of her, like they always did.
“That’s not what I mean, Monica. I’m not going to get there in time.”
I paused, but I brushed it off. She had a flair for the dramatic, so instead of accepting her declaration, I said, “Gram, you’re being crazy. It’s going to be fine. Let me put dad back on the phone, okay? I love you.”
“I love you too, pussy cat.”
And that was it.
Three days later, my dad woke me up at 6am, before any of my alarms had gone off for school, much to my dismay. When he called me into his room, I knew what had happened before he could finish his sentence. I was devastated of course — it was the first major loss in my life that I could recall. My grandfather, Bernice’s husband, had passed when I was 6, so while I knew him and remembered him, it wasn’t the same. This was a monumental moment, a disappearance that left a void in my chest that creeps up on me still. An emptiness, a longing to see her, hear her voice again.
Bernice’s death left an impact on my heart that grows as time wears on. I miss her infinitely more now than I did the day she died eleven years ago. So much has happened, things we talked about doing together, milestones I’ve surpassed without her physical presence. My heart aches when I think of her, a lump in my throat appears almost every time. Maybe because I’m older now, or because I’m at a moment in my life where I need her more than before. I cry for her more than I did as a child when the wound was still fresh. I wish I could have her with me at this place in my life. I wish I didn’t take her for granted, the way young kids do with life and love and people and experiences, always promised tomorrow. I wish I could roll my eyes at her, laugh at her outlandish statements, experience her as an adult.
Some of the best times I can remember were mornings with Bernice in the Bronx. A twin-sized trundle bed sat in the living room, against the right wall. The sun would come in from the southeast side of the building, drenching the entire apartment — I could look out and see a bridge, either the Whitestone or the Throgs Neck, I still can’t be sure. I would wait for her to wake up, and count the speckles on the wall next to me, daydreaming about my life, about being grown, about crushes and friends. I remember writing poetry in my head, even then at 10 or 11. She would snore, and talk a little in her sleep in those early morning hours. When she woke up, she’d smile and pull me close and we would chat about what the future would be like. She couldn’t wait to see me graduate high school. She was going to dance with me at my wedding. I told her to stop babying me, she said she would never stop, not until I had children of my own that she could spoil instead. We talked about death, and how no one was meant to be on this plane forever. She believed in God, and heaven, and reassured me that when it was her time to go, she would be my guardian angel, a liason between me and the Big Man himself. She would sit on my right shoulder and guide me through life, whispering encouragement and guidance in my ear when I was uneasy, or sad, or scared. I could never be scared, she said. She would always be with me, keeping me safe.
I can hear her sometimes. She was so good at keeping a promise.
