About Time

Today would have been Nana’s 81st birthday. After her death in April, I knew better than to swallow my grief. Instead, I let myself feel what I needed to. In my experience, grief never gets easier the more you experience death; instead, it compounds, like interest in some fucked up account you can’t collect on, no matter how hard you try or how much you might need the money. Fighting it off never works. I have to swim with the tide these days or risk going down. I wanted to write an obituary for Nana, one that reflected the complicated and tenacious woman I loved. But I couldn’t find the words in the immediate aftermath. I could only find the emotions, whatever exists pre-language, before our cultural or familial frameworks settle in to bring the incomprehensible into a semblance of focus, of meaning.  

I tried so hard to make sense of my mother’s death eight years ago. I fought like my life depended on it. I was exhausted and sad. I can’t even get into it here. But I found myself approaching Nana’s passing with a quiet acquiescence, a bewildering sense of acceptance. This is happening? Now? Again? Fine. Fuck you.

Last year at this time, my siblings and our partners celebrated Nana’s 80th, an impressive milestone that I felt in my bones she would surpass, easily, by at least another decade. For most of my life, up until the last year of hers, Nana had always seemed like the world’s youngest 70-something-year-old. She bustled with energy; walked circles around Grandview Cemetery to “keep her figure”; met up with her grief group, Soul Survivors, on a regular basis to share in their widowhood; attended mass as often as she could; went on bus trips from Johnstown to Rivers Casino and back again; the list goes on. She finally let her hair go gray in 2023, after years of dyeing it a pale blonde. I met her outside the Eat n’ Park in Johnstown’s West End for lunch that summer and the first thing she said when she climbed out of her car, in greeting, was a declaration of sorts: “How do you like my new hair?” With a coquettish hand flourish, she showed off the grays, which I can honestly say suited her well; she looked great and I told her so.

“It was about time,” she said, almost solemnly, like it had become a mantra in her mind, a new motto for her life. She was finally accepting something, or trying to. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t notice her recent decline in exuberance, the way her voice rasped low and uncertain when she talked about her life and recent health updates – she’d been struggling with UTIs for months and had to get a hysterectomy. She worried about her brother, Mark, who had lived with her since his early twenties (Nana was the eldest of four children, the only girl to boot; after her own mother died, she cared for her younger brothers), what he might do if she needed more hospital stints or another form of alternative care. She confessed that she didn’t want to die alone.

“I was there with your mother and your grandfather,” she repeated at least twice as we talked over our club sandwiches and fries. Something squirmed in me, a twist of the familiar shame and guilt I’ve carried since 2016. I had made it to my mother’s death bed, but I had been absent for most of her care. If I could go back in time, I’d change my whole life. I’d be a completely different person, one who understands the gravity of the situation, that death is more than a locked door – it is the vanishing of doors.

But I couldn’t go back in time. I placed my hand over Nana’s where it rested on the table. “You have us, Nana,” I told her, squeezing her fingers together to emphasize the truth in my words. I meant it this time, but I could tell she didn’t believe me.

“Yes, yes,” she agreed distractedly before she jumped into another story, one I couldn’t concentrate on because I was so focused on proving to her that I would be there when she needed me, wrestling with the impatience and horror of knowing I wouldn’t be able to prove anything until it was too late. Where had I been when she was in the depths of her own grief? I didn’t know what it was like to lose a child, she had told me that at my mother’s funeral. At the time, I thought she was being dismissive of my pain and it felt like a slap in the face. I would have preferred it if she’d actually hit me. But she was right. It was a lesson in wisdom. She was trying to tell me what I thought I already knew: it never gets better, it just changes you. You won’t know anything until you’re on the other side of it, when the knowledge is useless. I was determined to use that knowledge, regardless. I was determined to do right by Nana in the way I didn’t by my mother. I knew what it was like to lose a mother; I knew the ways in which you could love and care for someone through that last, ultimate journey. I knew when Nana was gone, I’d be sick with the thought of never talking to her again.

Deep turmoil swirls in my gut. Anger licks through my veins like a brush fire. I could do terrible things with the power of the grief I feel for these women: I could hatchet down a tree; I could break someone’s car windows; I could shovel my way down into each of their graves and let the dirt pack me away forever. The weight of that alone would be its own kind of relief. Grief is not just love. It is anger, and regret, and every missed moment of joy, gone from you forever – or worse, scrolling through your thoughts in an endless, miserable loop, dragging you back to all the questions you didn’t ask, the things you never said, the time you’ll never get back.

When my mother died, I did do some terrible things. I raged at my father. I smashed a collection of snow globes – each collected from a different city I’d traveled to – onto the driveway like I was smashing grenades in a war against God. I ran for miles until I had to stop to finish crying or throw up, until my toenails fell off and my feet bled from popped blisters. It was ugly and I reveled in the ugliness. I needed to sleep, so I wore myself down until my mind went blank. Even then, I couldn’t escape my dreams.   

I still can’t escape my dreams, but I’ve learned to harness the grief a little better. I recognize these intense hills and valleys now, of rage and heartache, relief and guilt. I have something of a map this time to navigate the turns. I know this is all “normal.” I have, after all, been here before.

I held up on my promise to Nana and rubbed her shoulder as she went. Then I cried like my life depended on it; sloppy but silent tears rolled down my face as another woman I loved left me behind for a time, a place, a dimension - somewhere and anywhere and everywhere - that I won’t be able to know until I’m on the other side, until I’m changed.