9.2.10 - last night suddenly breaking down in drew's bed because of how guilty i felt for not being a good enough granddaughter to grams, for how scared i always am at the thought of not having gramps and her in this world. mine has never been one without them. flashbacks of her smallness (how her hunched back worries me) resilience and sufferings. the way she looked standing over her mother's grave when gramps drove us to the cemetery to bring her parents yellow paper money. grams explaining what the engravings said. proudly pointing out her name under "children," talking as she picked dry leaves off the tomb, gingerly, carefully. her brown wrinkled hands, each finger dotted with a dainty fingernail at the end. how small and vulnerable she looked with her ashen hair rustling from the breeze -- whiffs of smoke from the burning paper money.
the time when we got in the car crash, grams' fingers twisting her cell phone strap, wounding it tighter and tighter around her brown finger, fast turning a motley pink. she was nervous but tried not to show it because i was still in shock.
the night she came into my bedroom leaning over my bed and telling me how much she loved me, that she knew i only had a bit of time left before i'd have to leave for college. her kisses on my cheek wet with her tears and her nose dripping, smeared on my unmoving face. her fingers holding my ears, cupping them tightly as if she could not bear to let go of me. even if all she'd have to hold onto was my thin ears. i thought about all this as i curled into drew's back last night and i could not stop my heart from splitting. drew lay still and occasionally asked, What are you thinking? What are you thinking?
i wonder if he felt confused. if he felt like i hadn't paid enough attention to his answers to my question about what his biggest worry was -- that he wasn't making the most of his time, that his parents are back home where he hasn't lived for ten years. that his grandpa might be swayed by those who surround him in wrongfully thinking that he has other motives for getting to know him. i care about his worries and love that he has them, love that he carries that inside. is this an odd thing to say? i will be there for him through and through, go into the depths with him. be his.
and i think i realize now, truly, that it's okay to sink a little, to be sad and torn, even in the presence of someone else. not just someone else though because i still couldn't, wouldn't break down in front of anyone -- but it's okay with him...and it's better, with him. because last night when i held onto him and shook against his body with my tears infused on his back, i felt sad... but not isolated.
