Letting go

I feel so perplexed by my own feelings. I want to write them down. To sort through them. I want to resolve these feelings. I think writing will help. But writing is so permanent. Do I want to remember? Do I want others to know about them?

I have been enjoying the season of fall in our yard. We have many more trees and the air is colder, crisper, and contains the heavy smell of rotting leaves. There are so, so, so many leaves. The other day Tanner raked a few hundred thousand of them up into a pile; just to jump in.

Symbolically, ironically, but mostly lamely, it seems appropriate that death would happened at such a time; as summer turns to fall.

A death in the family brings distant family members back into our lives. These aunts and cousins share with me their memories of Grandma. I am irritated at them. I feel they know my secret. I think they feel obligated to change my memories. To help me remember. Do my jaded memories distort theirs; warp their truth. I guess in some ways my memories are linked to theirs, but then again perhaps not. Perhaps, the physical distance of where they lived kept them from making new memories over the last few years. The last few years have been hard for those of us that remained close.

I spend most of a week, up late scanning images into a computer to show at the funeral. Images that represent different moments of my Grandma Verdie's* life. I put them into a video; each photo fades into the next. I invite my Mom over. Mom and I watch quietly as the photos pass by. My mothers mom, changes from toddler to adult, mother to grandmother.The series of photos is finished in 2 min and 37 secs; it repeats again. For some reason the duration of the movies time sticks in my head. It is strange that a whole life could go so quickly.

My Mom quietly asks, "How does this person become what she became?"

"I don't know" I respond quietly.

*I love my grandmas name; it means faith and truth. To me though, her name always made me

think of "nature" since it sounds like "birdie**" and reminds me of the color green (due to its similarity to "Verde").

** My grandmother loves birds. She was an avid bird watcher. ***

*** No, sadly, I did not develop my passions for birding from my Grandma. Our passions evolved independent of each other. I owe my passion to a professor at the University of Utah.

The last few years have been hard. In some ways we have grieved the loss of my grandmother for many years, as she slowly pulled herself away. For some reason she was unable to share herself. I wonder if I should have tried harder. Sometimes I blame myself for where our relationship ended.

I sat at the funeral and watched as others cry. I start to cry because I was not. I wanted to miss something too. I want to remember something that we did together. Remember the love I know she felt for me. Anything. A look. A sentence she stated. A moment of her and I. I dug deeper into my past. Looking for the memories. The memories my distant cousins remember; Christmas eves, pies, new potatoes and peas, gardening... I need to remember my Grandma, the Grandma who loved her grand babies, who loved me, so I can let her go...