she is not waiting. not quite.

it is more that the years mean nothing to her any more, that the dreams and the street cannot touch her.

she remains on the edges of time, implacable, unhurt, beyond, and one day you will open your eyes and see her, and after that, the dark.

it is not a reaping. instead, she will pluck you, gently, like a feather, or a flower for her hair.

(n. gaiman)

always,
h.d.b.

life changes fast.

life changes in an instant.

you sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.

so begins the book, the year of magical thinking, by joan didion.  the book chronicals the year following the death of didion’s huband, and the sudden (and ultimately fatal) illness of her only daughter.

we are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves.  as we were.  as we are no longer.  as we will one day not be at all.

grief, sorrow, madness, pain, confusion — they are all among the cast of characters in this tale of loss and healing — sprinkled in somewhere along the way, comfort. i found this book right when i needed it most.

i noticed the other day that the text on the cover of the book is black save for a few letters in blue.  together, those blue letters spell, john, didion’s husband’s name.  a fitting and beautiful tribute to a life shared, lost, and remembered.

so, as we were driving home after her funeral, i took out a piece of paper and wrote a short note to god. it said,

god, why did you have to take my grandmom? you should have waited until my sister was older. make sure that she watches over my family. love, heather. p.s. make sure you answer my question.

i remember folding the note and tossing it into the back of the car. i figured it would get to god somehow.

little did i know, my parents found the note and they shared it with my uncle, who happened to be a catholic priest. he also happened to write a weekly column in the catholic review. there, he answered my question to god.

my parents shared his response with me. at eight, i don’t know how much of it i understood, but i’ve looked back at it over the years and found some comfort in my uncle’s words. the last two paragraphs were always my favourite.

perhaps, the best answer to your question is to do what your father did with you. you went out one night and looked up at the stars and found a new star. that was gram. you knew gram was with god.

and so she is. gram is with god in spirit and with us in spirit. and when you and i die, and pass through the wall of death and come face to face with god, we will discover something beautiful. when we look at god, we will be able to see gram.

my parents and sister were vacationing on the eastern shore and i, in my newly discovered post-high-school independence, remained at home to work at the local veterinary hospital.

that afternoon, the front desk informed me that i had a personal call. i picked up the phone and was surprised to hear the voice of my mother’s cousin, sandy.

“heather,” she said softly, “i’ve been calling all of the veterinary hospitals in maryland looking for you. we couldn’t get a hold of your mother. i didn’t know what else to do.”

“okay,” i said, confused, “the rest of my family is away on vacation this week.”

“there’s something i need to tell you. you should probably sit down.”

reflexively, i grabbed a nearby stool and took a seat.

sandy continued, “heather, uncle jack died today.”

in that moment, i remember desperately searching my mind for uncle jack. i didn’t have an uncle jack. who was uncle jack? and then it hit me, her uncle jack was my grandfather.

i couldn’t say anything.

“can you get a hold of your mother? have her call me back, please. i’m so sorry.”

“yes. i have the number to their beach house at home.”

i hung up the phone and grabbed my things and walked out of the hospital. it wasn’t until i was driving home that i realized what i was about to do: i had to tell my mother that her father had died.

the burden of the knowledge i carried was overwhelming. i felt sick. i felt scared. i knew this piece of information that was going to change my family’s life forever. right now, though, everything was fine. i pictured them relaxing on the eastern shore, playing miniature golf, eating thrashers fries, walking on the beach, and it was all going to come to a screeching halt with my phone call.

i made it home, located the number, and dialed the phone. i counted the rings — one, two, three — maybe they weren’t there — four, five — and then my mother answered. i can’t tell you what i said to her that day because i don’t remember any of it, i only know that i said what i had to say, and it broke my heart.

my grandfather, jack patrick, suffered a massive heart attack that morning and died before he left home for a doctor’s appointment. he had no previous history of heart disease and was in otherwise good health. it’s hard to believe that nearly 14 years have passed.

no matter how irrational or unfounded, my heart will always carry a sense of guilt for having to make that one life-changing phone call.

a bystander counted aloud, “one, two, three, four, five, BREATHE, one, two, three, four, five, BREATHE.”

i hung on to his every word.

random, hushed voices filled the air.

“i don’t know what happened, she walked off the elevator a few minutes ago and sat down at the bar. then she just fell over.”

“do you think she’s going to make it?”

“who is she?”

“did someone call 911?”

the paramedics arrived moments later and took over the resuscitation attempt. their efforts to clear the lobby were unsuccessful, so they got to work in spite of the audience. one paramedic cut off the woman’s shirt and applied the defibrillator conductors to her skin. as they yelled, “CLEAR!” her body convulsed and vomit expelled from her mouth. it was the only time i saw her move. i knew she was dead.

what i didn’t know is that an hour before, the woman was eating dinner upstairs one table away from me. she had children and a husband waiting for her at home. she wasn’t sick. her heart just stopped, without warning, and just like that, her life was over.

i walked home that night with a group of friends. not one of us said a word, but i know we were all thinking the same thing: i just saw a woman die.

as we walked in silence, i started to count my own footsteps — one, two, three, four, five –not at all unlike the counting heard earlier that evening. each count, another moment of my life gone; each count, a moment closer to my own ending.

life is more fragile than we will ever know.