Grandmothers

by

Mike Smith

As I drove my wife back to her childhood home in rural Kentucky, I didn't really think it was appropriate to let Rage Against the Machine's "Killing In The Name" play on our car's speakers.  Lyrics like "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" seemed not only inappropriate, but in bad taste.  Her grandmother had just died.  I let the song play, though, because it was almost over anyway.  She probably didn't even notice the song.  Driving along in the night, I thought about a lot of things, but mostly I just thought about how everything had kind of turned to shit for us lately.

I was at my own grandmother’s house when I got the news.  I was visiting her when the phone rang.  My grandmother picked the phone up and got the brunt of the news.  The crying.  The sobbing.  The out of control.  All of that.  Then she handed me the phone.

My wife called me seven years ago at work to tell me that her other grandmother had died.  This felt similar.  Only now we were married.  Now we had more together.  Much more.  I know my wife well.  Some men don't know their wives.  I could feel the pain through the phone.  I wish I could have done something, but I knew I couldn’t, and I didn’t try. 

“You should probably go home,” my grandmother said.

“I’m coming home,” I told my crying wife.

“Come home,” my wife said.

“I am,” I said.  I didn’t say it was going to be okay.  Because it wasn’t.

I walked downstairs, passed my own grandmother, who told me to take care of my wife.  “She’s going to need you,” she said.  “She loved her grandmother a whole lot.”

“I know,” I said.  I was blank.  I imagined looking at myself.  I imagined my grandmother, who was crying, saying, Why aren't you crying or something? She didn't.  I didn’t cry until I left the house.  It didn’t hit me until I got to my car and started thinking.  I looked out into the 9:30 PM darkness and heard dogs barking.  People still had Halloween decorations up in late November.

My wife really did love her grandmother.  And then, Holy shit, so did I.  I loved her grandmother, too.  And she loved me.  And now I just got a phone call telling me that she had died.  And I was supposed to go home and be with my wife in a house that we had lived in less than six months, which her grandmother never even got to see.

I was a little nervous about going inside of our house for a few reasons.  I knew what kind of condition my wife would be in.  My condition had reverted back to the blank one I was in back at my grandmother's house.  Besides all that, we had been having some problems and I wasn't sure how the two issues would mesh.

            Once inside, all of our problems seemed to disappear, except for the one at hand:  the loss.  It was decided that we should probably go back to my wife’s childhood home in rural Kentucky that night and be with her parents during this time.

I had spent every Christmas at my wife’s grandmother’s house for the past eight years.  Each year she would give us all toothbrushes.  There was a time when I felt like I was not well-liked.  Like I was just another boyfriend.  Each year I would feel less and less like that.  That final Christmas I spent with my wife’s grandmother, I felt like I earned that toothbrush.  I felt like I was a husband and not just another boyfriend.  Ironically, I don’t know if my wife felt like that anymore because of what had been going on in our own relationship, but her family did.

My father-in-law was at his parent's house, taking care of things, making arrangements, and most importantly, comforting his father – a man who had just suffered a stroke a few years earlier and could no longer walk or talk, and now a man who had just lost his wife, my wife’s grandmother.

My mother-in-law was still calling people to let them know what had happened and to let them know that the funeral would be two days from that night with a visitation the day before.  I was asked to be a pallbearer.  Although taken aback a bit, I accepted.

We spent the time in between together – all of us.  I chose my words carefully as not to upset my wife, and she didn't choose many words at all.

I was a kid when my grandfather died.  I was very much an adult when my wife’s grandmother died.  As a pallbearer, I felt an extra sense of responsibility to comfort people, even though I was an in-law, and felt a bit disconnected at times.  I would find myself hanging out with the other in-laws every now and then.  People made small talk.  They remembered I was a teacher and asked me how my classes were going.  “Pretty good,” I would say, or, “Not too bad.”

My wife's grandfather was obviously disturbed.  He couldn't walk or talk, but he was doing these things.  Not miraculously or anything like that.  He would just get up for a second with the help of others and stand over his deceased wife's casket and cry out.  Seeing this was one of the hardest things I've ever had to see.  He would also talk a little bit somehow.  I wish I could forget the things he said.

I didn't realize how important she was to the family.  She didn't either.  I don't think anyone ever told her.  I think this is pretty common.  They made a collage and put it in the center of the room.  The collage, filled with pictures of her and her husband, was surrounded by the flowers that poured in from all over.

Although I was at the funeral home for a total of ten hours for visitation and the actual funeral, much of it was spent just sitting around and talking to various family members.  I learned a lot about the family and where I fit in, and don't fit in, to certain parts of it.  I think that's pretty common, too.  But it wasn't about me, and I reminded myself of that a lot.  While I'm part of the family, which people point out, I'm still an in-law.  That'll always make a difference.  I thought about the in-laws in my family and how I treated them over the years.

During the service, my brothers-in-law cried for their grandmother.  It was the first time in eight years I had seen them cry.  I cried with them, too, and felt a little more connected, but felt bad for feeling connected under those circumstances.  I wondered how they would remember these things.  I looked at my own grandmother during the service and she, too, was crying.  I didn't look at anyone else in the room, except for my wife, who was next to me, hugging me.  She had tried to tell herself that she had been through this before with her first grandmother's death and that this time, things might be easier.  They were not.  They seemed to be harder.

My role as pallbearer involved wearing a red rose on my suit coat and carrying the casket out to the hearse with my brothers-in-law and a few other relatives.  I was a little nervous at first, but only because I sensed that there may have been some controversy over my position as pallbearer earlier in the day.  I decided not to pay those thoughts too much attention because there were more important matters at hand.  I decided that whoever stirred that controversy up was probably not in his or her right mind at the time.

 At the burial, I hugged people and placed my red rose on the casket.  Before I knew it, she really was gone.  There were final outbursts.  There were final goodbyes.  I gave my wife a hug.  I gave my grandmother a hug.  I hoped I wouldn't be saying goodbye to them for a while.  But you never know.  And we'll go on, not telling people how much they mean to us, because that's the way we are and that's the way we do things.  As I drove my wife back to our six-month-old house, we didn't listen to Rage Against the Machine.  We listened to Elton John or some shit like that.

(Mike Smith is a writer and writing teacher who lives in Louisville,
Kentucky.  He is author of the novel Tell Christian I'm Sorry and editor of
the online zine decomP.  His work has appeared in The2ndHand, The IUS Review,
and Opium Magazine.  His second novel, Tremendous Power of Concentration, is
forthcoming.  Visit him online at www.tellchristian.com)