HONORING the DEAD

Grandma Rose was a proud, stylish and beautiful woman who, at age sixty-five appeared to be about forty-five. Mimi and I did not know her very well during our youth. The only time that we got to see her was when my father would come by and happen to take us to her house on brief visits. I loved her house with its’ dim lighting, sleek parquet wood floors, oriental rugs and African paintings and sculptures. Everything was so clean, so neat that I remember thinking that she believed that children were too messy and that was why I believed that we did not visit that often. I longed to appear sociable hoping that she would invite us more frequently. While at her house, I would sit there stiffly, smiling politely not knowing what to say. I wanted her approval so desperately that I tried to answer every one of her questions as perfectly as possible. However, this resulted in shy monosyllabic responses to inquiries that required extensive elaboration; it was extremely awkward for us all.


During my early thirties, Grandma had her leg amputated. I began visiting that same Linden Boulevard apartment where I’d sat cowering at her greatness as long as I could remember, taking her to doctors’ appointments and grocery shopping, paying her bills and keeping her company too. I would even help her out in going to the bathroom and bathing herself which made us both feel a bit uncomfortable in the beginning; but after a while we grew accustomed to a routine that developed almost instantly and Grandma came to depend upon me somewhat. I was happy to get to know her and realized that we were enjoying a bond that was ancient and strong. She was the proud matriarch and I the venerating daughter.

One of the things that I remember most about Grandma Rose was that she was very mean. But that endeared her to me even more because, at thirty, I knew what I could not have understood during my youth: that Grandma’s meanness was simply a cover up. Whenever she felt vulnerable, she would make rude or shocking comments designed to embarrass and subdue the person and evoke the emotion that caused her to feel exposed. For instance, a hug and a kiss from me would be met with a rolling of her eyes or a heavy-handed hit upon my shoulder. If I went too far, and I usually did, I would say something like,” You know, Grandma, I just want to thank you for allowing me to be a part of your life,” she would wave a perfectly manicured, wafer thin hand and , I response she’d mumble, “Oh, Chile please, go on now. She would always dismiss any intimacy I tried to create.

When she became very ill, her son, my Uncle Jerry, called and said, “Keeta, Mama’s in the hospital.” I traveled to Far rockaway via train that next morning wondering why they had hospitalized her so far away from Brooklyn where she resided. With grandma all the way out in “the Rockaways” those old feelings of longing to be closer to her returned because I could not make it out there every day to see her the way that I would walk from my house on Sterling Street and Rogers up to her Linden and Nostrand Avenue apartment every day. The dull ache of separation anxiety began to invade my new sense of daughter-hood. “Perhaps,” I thought, “It was for the best.” At the end of a long ponderous journey, I finally reached the hospital where my Grandmother lay all hooked to several machines with tubes sprouting from orifices so private it seemed a violation of Grandma’s womanhood that a nurse or doctor had tampered with them in order to construct the personified maze that was my Grandma Rose, frail, pale and so very still. She was lying there with her eyes closed, still beautiful and still mean. I looked at the stern, regal countenance she wore and I knew instantly how helpless she felt and how angry that made her.

I touched Grandma Rose’s hand and spoke to her: “Hey Grandma,” I whispered loudly,”Hey girl! I don’t know if you realize it or not, but I sure did appreciate getting to know you and it’s important to me that you know that. I have come to love you so much Grandma! In all of your arrogance and beauty, you are one of the most compelling women that I have ever known.” Miraculously, a sweet, long-awaited tear of pent-up emotion glided down her splendid face and onto the crisply starched hospital gown she wore. Just knowing that she heard what I’d said to her gave me tremendous joy. There was no one there but she and I and it was then that I realized that I had always known her. Time itself shifted and slammed into that moment allowing me a glimpse of myself in another fashion, through the form of Grandma Rose. Then I knew her as I knew myself. Her fears, her hopes and her anger were all mine. She had bequeathed them to me. Once the rite had been completed, I knew that I would never see her again. I also knew that Grandma Rose had appreciated the time that we had shared together and especially precious to her was that epiphany-type revelation that we experienced within that strange and inexplicable modicum of time during which we shared an exchange that only women, mothers/daughters are privy. That unforgettable tear that coursed down the slope of proud beauty that was my Grandmother’s face that had communicated all of this to me.

During the funeral of my beloved Grandma Rose, I stayed at home which offended my Uncle Jerry and a number of other relatives from the patriarchal-side of our clan. It hurt me that family members did not understand that I refused to attend the viewing of, what was for me, an “empty shell” that used to be my Grandmother.

I refused to partake in the farce. “Why,” I asked myself, “Do we make up and dress up the dead, primping their hair? Are we preparing them for admission into the soil or, in order to placate ourselves? I think that we do. Grandma Rose had passed on and I had shared my most private and intimate feelings with her and she had in return, shared with me. The formality of purveying a soul-less body lying there stiffly prepared for a Sunday sermon was just not my idea of saying goodbye---I respected her far too much. Conventionalism, traditionalism, socialism all equals conformity, in my opinion and I negate the premise that showing up to a funeral is a denotes a level of respect but, when I compare this almost meaningless ceremony to the quality time that she and I had been able to enjoy and, for me, the experiences prior to her transition actually strengthened the bonds of womanhood between us. Holding my Grandmother’s hand and evoking such great passionate emotion within her that an unforgettable, tell-tale tear escaped, signified closure for me. And I'm good with that!

_____________________________________________________-