a song for the weary
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My wonderful grandmother is dying, and I've been watching. Not in a morbid sense, but in the sense that I want to gather every detail I can before it's too late. I want to watch her face, look in her eyes, try to find my own face somewhere in there. I listen to her moan and mumble in her semi-coherent state, and I wonder how her voice must have sounded when she was my age. (I imagine it was very smooth with a slight southern lilt.) I've noticed how, despite her nearly 70 years of drinking and smoking, she has few deep wrinkles on her face, and much of her skin has remained smooth. I'm seeing all the things as if for the first time. I feel like I've never really looked at her, even though we've been very close my whole life. When she dies, which is predicted to happen in the next few days, I will lose a vast source of knowledge, wisdom, humor and history. I will also lose the best person I've ever known. If there is a heaven, I am confident that she will take residence there and become my own personal guardian angel. My pipeline to the lord, I suppose. (She promised she put in a good word for me.) Despite that, I will be very sad when she is gone. I will also be mystified, because it is beyond me how 88 years of consciousness can just cease to exist. But it will. I wish I had gathered it sooner, written everything down. That's the power of the written word, I guess; you may die, but your observations live on for as long as there is someone to read them. I really wish I'd pumped her for more stories. I have a feeling she's harboring quite a bit in that head of hers. But now it's too late. Looking in her eyes is about all I have left.I'm telling you this to illustrate a point. What is happening now is my first real experience with death, and it is terrifying. Aside from staying by her bedside as much as possible, I find inexplicable comfort in one thing: the Old 97's record "Satellite Rides." I don't know why, but whenever something awful happens, whenever my emotions are about to strangle me, I have to listen to "Satellite Rides." The music is not particularly soothing, nor are the lyrics. For whatever reason, it has become my go-to record when things get scary/crazy/sad/all of the above.I'm going to go and attempt to get some sleep. I'm exhausted.
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