Circle of Life

Yesterday I visited my grandmama who is waiting to die. My body walked into her room and my soul and heart walked out.
Seeing her like this is just to hurtful and undeserving for the way she lived...full of heart, passion and spirit. If I'm honest I said my goodbyes when she moved to the nursing-home a couple of years back. The strong woman I had know all my life was already fading away. And I found it hard to reconcile those two totally opposite personalities. I wanted to remember her like she was; beautiful, vain, powerful, demanding, passionate, generous, loving, bitchy and squeezing every moment out of life.

So there I sat in my chair beside her bed, seeing my aunty feeding her with a love and patience that surprises me every time. Especially because she doesn't want to show any 'weakness'. It fills me with tenderness but also sorrow because I can't seem to do that. Her friend was joking around with my grandma and although I don't think she notices anymore, I know she would appreciate it if she could. I find this kind of decay just to hard to swallow, maybe it brings back memories I'm glad to forget...stirring long lost feelings of hurt and sorrow. When I think of it, when my mother died I said my goodbyes to a lot of people. Creating a distance between them and myself. Not that I loved them any less, just that I took into account that life ends in parting and one day we all have to say our goodbyes one way or another.

A wise woman said to me once: "Memories are created in the way you want to remember them." And I want to remember my grandmama sitting at her dressoir and getting ready for bed, stroking her long silver-gray hair one hundred times. I want to hold on to the feeling of her arms surrounding me while we dance around in the living room and I'm standing on her feet to learn the steps. To see her naughty smile, when we share a secret and her eyes light up. To see men of all ages turn their head, when she passes like a lady with her energetic step. I want to remember her telling everyone that she has a bad heart and then dancing till everybody drops except herself. I want to remember the taste of her homemade pom and doing dishes afterwards. The endless stream of self-made dresses, Barbies and dolls, because she couldn't stand the fact that her first grandchild rather played with minicars, skelters, hobbles and preferred trousers over skirts. I was a girl after all, so she thought she could turn me over...guess I've won. But don't worry grandma I'm learning.

I'm sorry that you're not gonna see my children like you promised. We had a pact, remember? And I'm sorry I never wrote that book about you and your adventures in Suriname, like we always talked about. But I think it is time for you to let go...to move to the other side and be reunited with your long lost love and my grandpapa. I will always carry your laughter and spirit with me. I'm afraid that your advises of how to keep your man aren't working for me, but I'll keep trying and practice makes perfect...you should know. Love you gramps, have a save and easy flight.