In Other Words

Elderly women, both dead and alive, are haunting me.

Not in a bad way, mind you. Lately I’ve been on about Margaret Atwood, one of my favourite authors—and women. So it makes sense, then, that last night I dreamed of her, and her partner, too, Graeme Gibson. And I’m sitting here now still feeling the camaraderie of our excellent friendship. Lots of laughing and books and warmth. It was a good dream.

On Thursday morning, Colin called me to let me know his grandmother Catherine, who was 91, had finally passed away. I say “finally” because she’d been waiting for it for a long time. She was really ready to go; she felt she’d lived all she could live and had lost interest in pretty much everything, so it was her time.

Obviously, however, it wasn’t, and she lingered for a couple more years. Till she was about 89, she was relatively healthy. She walked, she drove, she had her hair done every week or so, she always dressed impeccably. And she baked fruit pies every weekend, golden, flaky, and temptingly crusted with sugar crystals, which she would take to Colin’s parents’ house to go with coffee after church. She had a heavy Dutch accent, and a sense of humour that slayed me, but that others didn’t seem to notice much. Perhaps they didn’t get it, or thought she was being too blunt. But that was one of the things I enjoyed: she was a woman who unabashedly spoke her mind, as elderly people are wont to do (after all, a lifetime of being tactful becomes wholly tiresome), but what some didn’t notice was the sparkle in her eye. Every time I saw her I gave her a kiss on the cheek, and she me, and she would hold onto my hand as though I was the last person standing. I loved her.

Best of all, she called me Jeff. This was actually for a couple of years at least, out loud and in cards, and perhaps people didn’t really notice because of her accent, or they couldn’t tell because of her flowery writing (I’ve been labelled Steff, rather than Steph, quite often), but one day someone else did hear and corrected her. Maybe Colin’s mom. I never wanted to say anything because I thought it was hilarious and very endearing. I wanted her to have a nickname for me, whether she knew it was a nickname or not. We had a good laugh, when she was told, but I said to her later that she could call me whatever she wanted.

When she ended up in the hospital after breaking her hip and a few other bones in a fall, Colin and I went to visit her. Again, she held onto my hand the entire time we were there, her pale, papery, cool skin soft in my palm. She was very happy to see us but very tired and uninterested in most everything—except bacon and eggs. That’s what she really wanted. Bacon and eggs or “egg toast.” Otherwise, though, she really was finished, ready to give up the ghost then and there.

She wasn’t unhappy or depressing or threatening, she was simply calm and tired. How she felt rubbed off on me and I’ll never forget my realization that if she had closed her eyes and stopped living that very moment, I would have been all right with it. She was so calm and so ready. But it wasn’t her time, I guess. And besides, it wasn’t up to me to give her permission.

This Christmas, the family held an auction (just within the family) of Catherine’s things; the money went to something like World Vision. I chose two of her teacups. The thought of sipping tea from these them, with their history, was really appealing to me.

So this morning, as we wait to go to the visitation, I am sipping Earl Grey in one of her cups, toasting an amazing matriarch and the formidable legacy she left behind. Her family is really huge, and she’s been the head of it alone for nigh on thirty years.

As I drink my tea and since we heard the news, I can’t say I’ve been very sad. More than anything, I feel happy because I have only good memories of this woman. Knowing she’ll no longer be present in body has touched me briefly, but for the most part, I feel very much as though she’s still with us.

Rather than mourn her death, I feel like celebrating her life. Somehow, she seems more tangible to me now than ever.

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