if you wanna skip to the end, there's a song for this post. you can play it as a soundtrack while you read. also I was a little emotional writing this, sorry about that (and the messed up grammar that comes with it). oh, and I updated my about page (finally)! go ahead and check that out too. ok I'm gonna go *hands mic over to myself*
//
tonight we talked with my great grandma for a long time about
history, history that to her, is her life. it
hurts because I can't go back. I can't know what it was like and it
hurts because she'll be gone before I know it and that wealth
of knowledge, and memories, and love, and life, and heartbreak- it'll be
gone.
and there won't be anyone left to tell us about how she was 9
and woke up at 4 to weed the tobacco in the summer. or about how she
and her 13 siblings used to build forts and see who could jump farthest
across the creek. there won't be anyone to tell about that time she
purposefully disobeyed her dad and led her friends and siblings and
climbed the huge pile of straw and jumped to swing across the limb of a
great old oak to the next stack and saw her daddy standing there between
the two stacks and had a heart attack and shouted for the others and
ran for her life. and then how he never mentioned it to them. how he
never beat one of his kids in his life. there won't be anyone to tell
how her daddy went down to the local store and talked with his friends
nearly every saturday, how he always brought back candy to share. or how
her younger brother Graham used to make faces at the dinner table
behind her daddy's back so she'd laugh while he remained perfectly
straight faced and get in trouble and then try not to laugh and then
make eye contact with a sibling and not be able to hold it in and then
get in trouble again. there won't be anyone to tell how the flour was
better then, how her biscuits aren't the same. how magical christmas
time was during the great depression, how they all set shoe boxes out on
the table to come downstairs in the morning to find them full. how
their farm was always open to anyone with it's 10 girls and 4 boys, how
people cared more about other people, enough to slow down.
there
won't be anyone to tell what it was like getting married young, having
her husband go off to world war II and writing letters everyday. what it
was like to have him gone when her first girl was born, gone for
christmas, gone for years. no one to tell what it meant to have a third
child mentally handicapped, to still be caring for her at age 94. she
won't be there to tell what it was to have her husband to die young. to
have her firstborn, my nanny to die in her early forties from stage 4
breast cancer. Nanny, whose siblings don't remember ever having a bad
word with her, whose kids never remember her losing her temper, who
married her high school sweetheart. everyone who knew her says she was
an angel on earth the most selfless and patient person they knew and I
never got to meet her. she's the reason my dad cries every time he reads the
end of voyage of the dawn treader. there won't be anyone to
tell me what it is for nearly all your friends and siblings to die
before you, what it is to be in so many funeral homes so many times. one
day, she just won't be here anymore and it shatters my broken heart. she
loves, and gives, and pours everything in her heart out on every little
person that walks through her door. she's given me more than I could
ever hope to give back. I want to give back. I want to listen, and I want
to remember, and I want the world to know
that my grandma is one
of the strongest, most beautiful, most loving giving hardworking
incredible humans in the world. I want to write a book, I want to read a
biography of her. she makes me want to remember it all.
maybe
that's why I cried listening to twenty one pilots version of can't help
falling in love. I didn't know why I was starting to cry. but I think
it's cause a long time ago on the brink of my memory,
my dad played and listened to and sang Elvis' version of the song when I
was little. and it hurt cause I couldn't remember and it's sweet and it
makes me sad that I won't remember all the beautiful beautiful things
and memories that I've been given. and I want to. I love this messy,
cracked, and broken life. I love it so much and I want to make the best
of it. I want to be remembered for the little things that, in the end,
became the biggest. I want to slow down I want to care and appreciate
and not conform to the world. I'll always remember one thing she's said,
"people say the world has changed, but it's not the world. it's the
people." don't let the world change you. or as my Granny would say,
don't let people change you. God, take my hand. take my whole life, too. cause I can't do any of this without you.
so y'all know i was crying lots writing this. like, I miss my nanny. even if I never had her to miss and even when I don't admit it. and I'm scared for when I start missing Granny. anyway, here's twenty one pilot's cover // listen to that while you read.. maybe it'll help. that's what I did while writing. love you all xx
