A post in which I head for home

However I tried not to think about it, obviously life went on. Or stopped rather. Granny died about 11:30 this morning. I had known this was happening. When Lisa called me, she told me that Mom told her not to come up yet. Lisa was waiting for Mom to tell her when to come, and for plans to be made, etc. I thought about that, but then just thought if not now when? I decided to leave. I just compartmentalized and went on. I knew I had to get the weekly reports put together before I left, and I did.

I went through the motions of getting out of town mechanically, kind of watching myself from a distance and marveling at the competence of this stranger, whoever the hell he was, and a wondering a bit about how he could be so callous when someone had just died. Sometimes I'm surprised to find myself an adult. But that’s what you do. You cope, and you go on. The world doesn’t stop turning. I didn’t even call Mom. I just headed that way. I ran in to a huge traffic jam at the state border, and ended up sitting there, barely creeping, for over an hour and a half. Eventually I did text Mom so she wouldn’t worry. She just sent back “OK”. She knew I would be on the way. I called Lisa too, so she wouldn’t think I was sneaking off up there without telling her. She has the kids and stuff so I’m a bit more mobile. She was fine. Rod is sick, so Mom was up there by herself, and she said she was glad I was going on.

When I got there, they were at the house waiting for my Aunt Donna, the youngest, to arrive. I rarely see my aunts and their husbands, so we visited and caught up a bit. I was the only one of the grandchildren there. We went on to Ruby Tuesday’s for supper. We visited and talked at Granny’s house until late, my mother and her sisters teasing each other the way sisters do.

When it was time for bed I went on to Grandma’s house. I had called Dad earlier today and he had my Uncle Chris open the house for us. No one has lived there since Grandma went to the nursing home. The house didn’t do much to lift my spirits, having sat empty long enough to start to get scruffy. There has apparently been a serious mouse problem because there’s poop in everything. As far as it is out in the country it’s almost impossible to keep the mice down.

On the one hand, it’s a comforting place to be. My grandparents lived there from the time I was born. I helped my grandfather build the fireplace in the den, carrying the bricks into the house for him one by one, the brown knit work gloves huge on my child’s hands. I stayed here with them one summer, just before I started to become a man, my grandmother making ham and eggs for my breakfast. I stuffed myself on her home-grown green beans (my favorite) until I got a stomach ache, and taped paper airplanes to the ceiling of the bedroom at the front of the house. I went to sleep with the windows open, the attic fan pulling the soft night air into the house to the protest of screaming cicadas. When I was a teen-ager I drove up to visit. A trip to Grandma's was the first I ever made on my own. I was so proud to get there with (almost) no directions. The summer of my junior year, I painted the eaves, windows, and doors for her. She insisted on paying me $100. I know every nook and cranny.

It makes me sad to see it as it is now; kind of grungy and neglected, like a once-cherished teddy bear it is about time to discard. It smells musty. All three of the light bulbs in the bedroom fixture were burnt out. But there were clean sheets there my uncle left for me. I plugged in a lamp, made my grandmother’s small bed, and turned in. I put my feet down between the end of the mattress and the footboard and went to sleep in the perfectly quiet early spring night.