I'd like to say it's for a perfectly normal, run-of-the-mill childhood traumatic experience in which I set my hair on fire with a sparkler causing extreme trauma and years of therapy, but the truth is that I never had a single unnerving Independence Day experience as a child. I have nothing but great childhood memories. Which, believe it or not, is actually kind of the problem.
I've mentioned before that my brother and I spent our summers with our grandparents in Iowa from the time we were babies up until we were around seventeen (respectively) and decided that sweltering heat and humidity mixed with the vague but ever-present smell of cow poo wasn't really our thing anymore. But prior to my surly teenage years, I loved spending summers in Iowa and the best part of the summer was always the fourth of July. My grandparents lived in a house on a lake and after the obligatory family barbeques, everyone would gather in boats and on the docks to watch the big fireworks display. My most vivid of all of my childhood memories is watching those fireworks crack over the sky and simultaneously reflect in the water, so you couldn't tell if they were falling down from above or coming up from below the clear, bright surface of the water. Everyone always had their radios on the local station, which would play Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World" on a continuous loop until the last trail of sulfur-scented smoke from the last firework cleared. Every single person on the water, old or young, would sit in silence, relishing in both the sight of the colorful explosions overhead and the comforting, familiar sound of Louis. I remember thinking, even back then, that if I never made it to Paris or went anywhere exotic, it didn't really matter because I couldn't imagine anything more beautiful than that little fireworks show in that tiny Midwestern town.
By now you might be thinking to yourself "This person is nuts, nothing about this is even remotely sad" and you're right. This would have been a happy blog full of sweet, innocent childhood memories, until five years ago when everything changed.
July 4th, 2007 is a memory I wish I didn't have. I had just had Layla and was nervously pacing outside of the closed door of her nursery, silently cursing the people who dared to set off the loud fireworks I was sure were going to wake up my beautiful baby (even though they didn't). I was on the phone with my mom who was in Iowa, not sitting on a lake listening to Louis and watching fireworks, but at a hospital with my grandmother. My grandma had become very ill unexpectedly and my mom called to tell me that she was being transferred to a hospice and that it didn't look good. I had been to the doctor that day myself and had been told that because of the circumstances of Layla's birth (horrible, slow-healing, and all-around gruesome), I wasn't permitted to travel. I was about to lose someone very important to me and all I could do was sit and wait for it to happen. Which, in case anyone is wondering, is the absolute worst feeling in the world.
I had always been close to my grandma. She was both the person in my family who I felt I was the most like and the person I aspired to become. I liked her because she always seemed so sophisticated to me, especially as a little girl. I was constantly amazed that she knew the right thing to wear for any occasion and knew exactly what to say to every person she came across. But I loved her because underneath her demure persona, she was funny, sassy, and sharp as a tack. She was responsible for my love of books and would send them to me constantly. Over the years I received all of the classics as well as the Babysitter's Club (AKA preteen girl literary crack) when I was young, and then books she had read herself and knew I would love as I got older. We would spend entire days during those humid Iowa summers just sitting on the porch and reading; our only conversations would involve reading something funny aloud from one of our books or asking the other what we should have for lunch. I've told this anecdote to countless people who never fail to timidly ask if I was bored all day or if spending my days this way made me feel neglected (for the record, my answer is always a very loud, very enthusiastic "Hell no!"). I love that we had that quality in common, in the same way that I love that I inherited her height, eye color, and bump in my nose, things I never fully appreciated in myself until I could no longer see them reflected in her.
My grandma passed away two days after that call on July 6, 2007. To say that I was devastated would be an understatement. It's more accurate to say that it felt like losing a chunk of myself and knowing that I would never get it back. I did nothing for days but clutch sweet little three-week-old Layla and cry my eyes out. I cried because the world lost one of its few good people, I cried because I knew she would never meet my children and found that unbearably unfair, but mostly I cried because deep down I knew that the glue that held my family together was gone. I finally realized that those magical summers were magical because of what went on behind the scenes, because of everything my grandma did to make sure everyone was happy and having fun. I, of course, still talk to my grandpa, cousins, aunts and uncles, but it's not the same. When I went back to Iowa two summers ago for my cousin's high school graduation, I realized that it wasn't Iowa that was enchanting. The town I had loved to spend my summers was just a place, and a pretty average one at that. The enchanting part was my grandma. She was the one who made everything beautiful.
It's been five years since she passed away and I still think about her and miss her every day. If I'm in a tough situation, I always ask myself "W.W.J.D?" (What Would Jean Do?). If someone says something unkind to me, I try to respond like she would, remembering how she always said that our words are our most deadly weapons and to use them wisely. I wonder constantly what she would think of my mothering skills and life choices. One of the biggest regrets of my life will always be that I wasn't physically well enough to go to Iowa and say goodbye. On the other hand, when I'm able to feel optimistic, I remember that I was twenty-three when she passed, and I have millions of wonderful memories of her. She was at my wedding and saw me only weeks before Layla was born and as hard as it is to feel like that makes me lucky in any way, I know that it does.
So every Fourth of July when the fireworks (that never seem as impressive as they used to) light up the night sky, I will watch them with my own little family, trying to be the one that makes everything feel beautiful and magical for them, despite the ache in my own heart.
Such a touching post Abbey. I know your Grandmother is so incredibly proud of you and undoubtedly in love with your kiddos from above.
ReplyDelete