The fifth was the eleventh anniversary of my grandfather’s death. I never once had an extensive conversation with him, though I remember spinning round and round on the barstools at his house. I remember going with my mom to deliver a Father’s Day cake every year, too. Who the man was, I mean, besides Mama’s dad, was something I never knew.
I had a meltdown a few days ago. Stress, frustration, and ennui have been festering in my life for some time, and I just suddenly lost it. I don’t know what triggered it. I was talking to my mom on the phone and she needed to get off the phone. I hadn’t heard her voice in awhile, and I felt so cold and alone. I called her back bawling and let it all spill out: I don’t want choices, I feel lost in them, I don’t know what I want to be, I am so afraid of being alive but not really living.
My mom mopped up my weepy mess over the phone. Quite magical, really. She told me to get out of the apartment and walk around. The wind quickly extinguished the fire of my tears. I ate and found no answers. I thought of her dad, calling him “grandpa” sounds so foreign and affected. She could never confide in him, to my knowledge. At one time, she mopped up his tears. Hers always fell undisturbed by others.
Do moms follow their own mom advice? Did she ever take a walk and look into the twinkly night sky and feel kind of relieved that at least she knew something - that it is dark and cold and she knows where this one road leads?
I don’t know. I’ll have to ask when we talk again. I just feel so lucky that my mom is still with me, that there will be an again this December.
