“Summer, hit the brakes. Your foot is on the gas. Summer, hit the brakes! Oh, my God! Summer! The brakes! Hit the brakes, now!”
A comical crash into the pump house wall followed my grandmother’s imperatives. I was holding my breath in the backseat of her Buick station wagon, as my cousin, Summer, confused the brake with the accelerator in the carport. Purportedly, we were learning how to drive. Summer burst into tears, apologizing profusely. I waited to see what my grandmother would do. After an initially dazed moment, she broke into peals of laughter. Relieved by her sense of humor, Summer and I started laughing, too. That’s how I like to remember my grandmother – with a keen sense of humor in even the most trying of circumstances.
Minnie Joyce Reed was her maiden name, but she will forever be “Nan” to me. She grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, and at the age of nineteen, she boarded a train to Florida with twenty-five dollars in her pocket. Moxie should have been her middle name. She was a nurse, a wife, a mother, and ultimately a grandmother. It was in this later capacity that we became so well acquainted.
As a small child, I knew that we were kindred spirits. Whether I was “hiding” in her kitchen cabinet while she made dinner, or pocketing the baby Jesus from the crèche at Christmastime, (I was a quirky child), Nan gave me ample freedom to explore and grow. I was her “Jenny Pen,” a diminutive gleaned from a novel that she read somewhere along the line. I can still hear the way that she said it, with a slight emphasis on the first syllable and the hint of a southern drawl; “My, Ginny Pin.”
The relationship grew as I did. With the advent of email, we developed a daily correspondence via the computer after I left home for college and, ultimately, law school. She kept me updated on her latest quilting projects, recipes worth trying, and any noteworthy family gossip. I bemoaned my hectic exam schedules and sought relationship advice about the man du jour in my life. Nan was a confidante and a rock in the tides of my ever-changing twenties.
Nothing could prepare me for what happened next. I received her call in the late afternoon on Sunday, October 3, 2010. I doubt that I will ever forget that day. She told me that there was a melanoma on her arm, the cancer had spread to her internal organs, and the doctors estimated that she only had few weeks left, at most. The words came out of the telephone, and I wanted to shove them back inside the receiver. There had been a mistake. This must be the wrong number, the wrong person, and most definitely, the wrong message. This could not be happening to us. I flew home to Florida the next day. Less than two weeks later, Nan passed away at home on Thursday, October 14, 2010.
The following weeks and months blur in my memory. It was the darkest time in my life, and I fell into a terrible depression that fall and winter. I found no meaning or purpose in my existence, and my pain discerned no end. I was angry with a dubious God.
In the midst of my grief, I turned thirty. It was a milestone birthday that I wanted to share with Nan. I had no desire to celebrate. There were so many questions that had been left unanswered. I needed to reach her. She always knew what to do.
Then came her letter. Before she passed, Nan had written me one last letter. I had been previously too distraught to read it, but I finally decided that it was time to open it on my birthday. I wanted to hear her voice and sense her presence. Her letter reads as follows.
This is for my own dearest Jenny Pen,
Wipe your tears and read this with a glad heart. I don’t want you to grieve. I want you to know how much I love you, and keep it close to your heart. Remember the good times and all that we have shared. It will help you get on with your life. Whatever you choose and whomever you choose will be right. You never do anything in haste, and I know that you will give this a lot of thought. If and when you decide to have children, tell them about me and mention the fact that I loved you without reservation. Try to take care of Papa and your mother. They will need your strength, and it will lighten their load.
I have had a good life, Jen, and that is all anyone can ask for. I am so glad that I got the chance to have you in my life. You can be sure that I am waiting for you – somewhere – and will be truly glad to see you when you get there.
Many, many hugs and much love to someone I hold so dear.
Nan
I reread the letter each day in the months after her death, searching for some undiscovered truth in the now memorized words. I kept hoping that the act of reading it would somehow bring her back to me. Perhaps she would materialize if I summoned her with all my might. Nothing happened. I was an empty shell moving through space, unmoored and hopeless. I did not want to enjoy life. How could I derive pleasure from anything when she was not here?
Slowly, winter shed its frost, and spring emerged – her favorite season. While I had no inclination to do anything, I forced myself to resume my erstwhile favorite activities, like tennis and sharing dinner with friends. That was one of her famous aphorisms: “You’ve got to be ready to go, whether you’re invited or not.” Even though I felt like an automaton, going through the motions, I tried to prepare myself “to go,” wherever life might take me.
Then, one day, while I was driving down the road, listening to the 70’s station on satellite radio, (my happy place rests somewhere between the Bee Gees and James Taylor), the song “The Streak” by Ray Stevens emerged from the ether. “He ain’t rude, boogie-dy, boogie-dy. He ain’t lewd, boogie-dy, boogie-dy. He’s just in the mood to run in the nude.” I started laughing uncontrollably. It was Proust for my ears, and I surrendered to the effect of the music. Instantly, I was transported back to my childhood and sunny afternoons spent riding around town with Nan, listing to Ray Stevens on an old cassette tape in the car. As she would say, with a crooked smile, “He’s such a caution.” From that moment on, I knew that holding on to my grief would not bring her back. Instead, I needed to harness her humor and verve for living.
Day by day, my appetite for living returned, and I was comforted by Nan’s continued presence, rather than her absence, in my life. When I took the time to notice, I found her everywhere: in my mother’s laughter; the taste of lemon, frozen yogurt (her favorite flavor); the scent of Carolina Herrera perfume; or my Sunday telephone conversations with my grandfather. Nan would not have wanted me to feel guilty about living and enjoying my life. On the contrary, she would have been disappointed if I failed to embrace it. She taught me not only how to love, but also how to love life, in all of its glory and pain.
With great difficulty, I forced myself to stop reading her letter every day. At some point, I realized that the letter was only an artifact of her love. There was no mysterious, final-hour message to decode. She remained fully with me, and I did not need a piece of paper to hold on to her. I was searching so hard in one place, when, as cliché as it may sound, the meaning had been there all along.
I was complicating the message. Fundamentally, the love that I shared with my grandmother was simple. We did not need to exchange expensive gifts or dine at posh restaurants. Some of my happiest memories with her were spent in craft stores or walking along the beach, searching for seashells. As she wrote in the letter, she loved me “without reservation,” and we were blessed with almost thirty years together. When I turned my attention to all of our adventures, my grief shifted into gratitude. Now, when I miss her, I try to cultivate the hope that one day I will have a granddaughter, whom I will love as much as Nan loved me. Even though death took her body, it could never take what she taught me about love.
