Singing to a Gravestone

I heard a song that reminded me of you today. It struck me so fiercely as I listened to it over and over that I broke down over my homework, sobbing into my shaking hands. It’s been months. Shouldn’t I be done hurting this much? Shouldn’t I miss you less and less until a stray thought of you is just that?

When you first passed away, I felt like I was holding my breath for a long time. I saw and heard you in everything. People say that is supposed to help — that it is supposed to be a comfort. It wasn’t. It was a brutal shock to my system each time. I couldn’t even write about it in my journal, which was the one place I was never censored. Every time I picked up my pen to write about your funeral and how awful it was, or how the family dinner after was one of the most beautiful experiences despite your glaring and painful absence, all I could get out was the date and time of your death. I kept the pen in my hand and would stare at the page for what felt like hours before just closing it. I still haven’t opened it back up.

I saw you all the time when I was little. Less, after we moved several states away, but my parents, brother, and I still made that 800-mile drive or flight to see everyone at Christmas, or in the middle of summer. July has always been hot in Indiana, but it’s the kind of dry heat that wasn’t miserable.

You used to have a pool behind your house. I thought it was hilarious that Grandpa never once bought a pair of swim trunks because his cut-off jeans were “just fine, dammit.” That pool was the perfect remedy for the day’s dry heat, and in the middle of summer it didn’t get dark until 8 PM. My brother and I would stay out as long as you would let us, splashing and diving under the everlasting sunset while you watched us from the window.

When we finally came inside, we would shower and then watch Jeopardy with you and Grandpa, curled against your side or cross-legged on the floor at your feet. We did it every year, and every year you told me how smart I was when I got the questions right. I can’t remember a year where we didn’t visit you at least once. I always came with a song prepared for you, and a thousand books in my backpack. I stayed with you for a summer eight years ago and brought so many books with me you said you’d never seen so many except for in a library.

I never liked living in Texas, and when I was kid, I rebelled against it as much as I could. For most of my life, it was your house that was home to me. I could smell your road on the late fall mornings in Texas. I would wake up, and before I opened my eyes, every cell in my body told me I was at your house. I would look forward to every visit I could get my hands on because it would be a week filled with fun and the warmest love you could give your grandchildren.

We buried you on July first. It was a Sunday. I didn’t want to go to your funeral. I didn’t want to see everyone so wounded, especially my dad. I didn’t want to see you lying in your casket, never to offer to cook whatever i wanted for breakfast even when I wasn’t hungry, never to teach me how to arrange flowers in a vase. Never to ask me to sing for you again.

It breaks my heart that you are buried in Indiana, 800 miles away from me. It breaks my heart that I can’t just drop everything, grab my keys, and head to the cemetery when I need to be close to you — more than just talking to you in the air around me. It breaks my heart that you aren’t there to ask me to sing for you.

Soon, I will find a way up there. I’ll bring the tiny, golden, grand piano figurine you gave me years ago to remember you by and I’ll say hello. I’ll spend hours telling you about the boyfriend you never got to meet, about my apartment you never got to see. I’ll tell you that I miss you, dammit, I miss you so much.

And I’ll sing that song for you, even if it’s just to a gravestone.

I love you, Grandma.