Wading Through Grandma's Silver

Saturday afternoon I found myself on my knees in the house I knew as my grandmother's, not the dingy bachelor pad it had become since 2000 when she passed. Opening dusty china cabinets that obviously hadn't been opened in several, several years the dust permeated everything. In the drawers of one of the chests were old credit cards with my grandmother's name on them, prayer cards from funerals going back to 1970's- one of my grandmother's 13 siblings, costume jewelry, string, and even some old 45's for the antique record player- one was Mrs. Robinson. I got a chuckle out of that.

This was sadder somehow, pillaging what I wanted from the house I used to run around in as a child at Christmastime, than picking out the steel casket, than choosing the burial plot in St. Patrick's cemetary, even sadder than staring up at my father's body laid out pristinely in his golfing attire, as if during a nap.

I left the house with several boxes of old photos (several of little me- see there), my grandmother's silver, some figurines from my parents trip to Spain before I was born, and a sweater from my Dad's closet- something that smelled like him.

The call came last Wednesday, walking up 42nd street on my way home from work, a decidedly poor place to find out anyone has passed into the next. It hit me so much harder than I expected. Though if I should have learned anything from my mother's passing it's that even when it's expected, you can never anticipate how you will feel. God that sounds hokey, like from an ABC afterschool special.

Since that day, when I haven't managed to distract myself with work, or who will be eliminated next from Dancing with the Stars, I've found myself haunted by images from childhood, like a mini-recorder in my brain playing over and over again. Laying in bed at night, the idea of both my parents being dead (when I'm not even 30) seems ubsurd. I picture myself at 6, 7, and 8 driving my father's lawnmower around the 4 acres of land on the property, avoiding trees and the lone pole in the middle of the yard; at 9 riding in the back of one of my mom's old beat up station wagons heading down to the beach for the day.

The loneliness, now that they are both gone...is profound, and I find myself feeling much like I did after Mom died, wondering when things will feel ok again. My cousin asked me before we left the house, which will go on the market any day now, whether I wanted one more walk through alone. No, I didn't. I didn't look behind me when we pulled down the driveway, or when we left the cemetary.

Sometimes, looking back is too hard.