ME: (Teared up, sniffling) You know, (laughs), the shitty thing no one ever tells you about decolonizing your love is that once you do, even romantic love songs usually meant for lovers, end up reminding you of your grandmother. Because once you break down all those degrees and compartments--Once you start breaking down all the different levels of love, you find yourself loving everyone in your life on a sort of-kind of, equal plane. Your brothers, your sisters, your mother, your cousins...All your relatives, your lovers, your friends. You just sort of love everyone you love. The other night I heard a song--It’s a romantic song meant for lovers, but it reminded me of Grandma. (Talking through tears) I can barely keep myself from crying just thinking about it, again. It’s mostly the chorus that reminded me of her. I guess it has something to do with intimacy. Not sexually intimate, obviously. But there are other types of intimacy.
I wanna sleep next to you…
I thought about all the times we stayed at their place, when we were kids. Grandpa always insisted we take his spot, to let us sleep on their bed in the back bedroom. Grandma would stay in the back bedroom with us. We liked to pillowtalk with Grandma and we would try to stay up late and ask her to tell us a bedtime story. She would be telling us a story and we would start giggling and laughing. We never let her end any of her stories. Grandpa had a small reading lamp in the back bedroom. Grandma used the lamp and showed us how to make hand shadow puppets on the wall. I remember watching her hands and watching my own hands practice making shadow puppet animals--Dogs and rabbits and birds--And I remember touching her hands...Strong. Soft. Her hands holding up my little kid hands.
Then I remembered the way her cool fingers soaked in water, felt, as they wiggled their way thru my hair tangles. Then, starting at my temples, she would rake her thick finger nails over and across my scalp. Her fingers and hands tightly gripping, twisting, and turning the thick sections of my gathered hair strands into one single long braid.
I thought about watching her hands as she traced the outlines of my feet onto blank pieces of paper when she made patterns for my leggings... Her hands and her eyes focused on manipulating the thin sewing needle and thread she used to pick up each tiny bead when she was beading belts on her loom. She told me one time that all of her beadwork had at least one mistake because, “We are human beings and only Our Creator is perfect.”
I kissed her hands on the night-just after she passed away. Her skin was cold. Her hands were thin, fragile to the touch.
I’m trying to be patient with myself. I'm letting myself cry when I feel the urge to cry. I am letting myself grieve. I knew her time was coming. Losing Grandpa was hard for her...I just didn’t expect to feel this way. It’s hard thinking about never being able to go back. Never being able to go back to their house and see them, ever again...I grew up in that house on their land. I lived half of my life with both of them being a part of my daily life.
MOM: You know, you’re one of a few. You don’t have to go on ancestry.com or some other website to look up your family. You know who you are. You know who you come from.
ME: I know and I am grateful. But you know something I realize now, in hindsight?
I believed in her immortality more than my own.
She broke down and let me in
Made me see where I've been
Been down one time
Been down two times...
You don't know what it means to win
Come down and see me again
Been down one time
Been down two times
I'm never going back again.
Made me see where I've been
Been down one time
Been down two times...
You don't know what it means to win
Come down and see me again
Been down one time
Been down two times
I'm never going back again.
--"Never Going Back Again"/FLEETWOOD MAC
