Or maybe I'm exhausted.
Is this exhaustion, or a wave of sadness and regret?
It’s after 1 A.M. I’m watching my two-year-old eat green beans and crackers.
I look at him tenderly, and the tears and thoughts come from nowhere:
“Grandma will never see me be a mom. If I had become a mom as a teenager, she would have been right here by my side.”
The thought is as random as MJ’s midnight snack.
Why am I suddenly grieving the fact I can’t call Mae Alice and talk to her? I can’t have her pray over me. I will not hear her quote scripture. I will never taste her fried fish or wake up on her couch at 5 A.M. to the sound of clean dishes being rewashed as she talks to Jesus.
My Grandma, who was present for every significant milestone of my life, cannot be here for this—and I am sad. I miss her in the way one misses comfort in the midst of the scary, scary unknown.
And as I write, I know this is neither random nor strange.
This evening, my sweet nine-year-old cousin called my aunt, her grandma. They talked. They joked. There was love in every word. I smiled. I know a well-loved granddaughter when I see one.
It wasn’t in my awareness—how much I miss picking up the phone and talking to Mae Alice. Maybe I don’t visit often because I am unsure how to hold gratitude and grief all at once. Alzheimer’s has taken the parts of her that I miss. But thank God she’s still here.
I can play Green Onions, watch her light up in real time, and jam with her in a way we never did when I was a child—when she wasn’t as free to enjoy music or shake her shimmy.
How can there be gifts intertwined with madness? Joy in grief? Peace in chaos? How can the little girl in me grieve what was while the woman appreciates what is? What strange, beautiful, merciful magic is this?
It’s nearly 3 A.M. MJ is back in bed, a felt flower in each hand, watching me watch him. Soon, we’ll both drift back to sleep.
Life is wild.
Or maybe I’m blessed.
