Issue 16: Dear Grandpa Joel
Dear Grandpa Joel
When I woke this morning from fitful and restless sleep on your memorial service day, five years after you died, it was raining. Classic cold forty degree New England rain. Perfect for a funeral day, really.
On my way to your memorial service I took the highway for the first twenty minute stretch. Your burial site is nearly 75 miles from my current home, you see. A few years ago I used to take this part of 95 past Gray, but this time I was getting off that exit. I was turning left to head towards Bethel, which was still nearly 60 miles away at that point. So I drove as fast as I could because I had left late because I’m having a very hard time letting you go. I think you’re still here, you see, and that’s why I’m telling you this story.
So there I was, turning 90 minutes into 70 minutes. Playing with time, teasing Fate to get to you, so as not to disrespect you. I’m sorry I was so full of grief that I had a hard time rushing as usual that morning. I went 70 miles an hour in the 50 zone and 50 in the 35. I passed trucks, a Tesla, a Honda, and a slow sedan, all legally of course, and smoked them on the back roads of Maine because I had to get to you.
Well, I succeeded in my play with Time because I really did get back 21 minutes and made it by 10:05 (The service was at 10). The rain pattered on and drifted off while I drove, and the clouds were low but not so low that I couldn’t see the hills and mountains as I approached. There’s quite an elevation change between Bethel and Portland, I don’t remember the exact number but I know it’s hundreds of feet. The drive was still beautiful. Rising roads over hills where I could see for miles at the top of the hill, before I pressed the clutch in with my left Doc Marten boot and just rode down the hill like a kid on a shopping cart.
Those hills rose and fell for an hour before I made it into the edge of Bethel. Two minutes to the grave site and there everyone was waiting for me already. On time because the aunts and uncles and my father are better than me at managing their grief today.
I approached your grave and saw that terrible, horrid little wooden box with your name on it. No, no, no, I felt the thought take hold in my chest as I resisted the sensory input I had to see. I made busy with the phone camera and the tripod so we could livestream the event for people who were not there. I fumbled in the rain, which fell lightly but steadily on me and my camera while my blue raincoat lay on the grass of the cemetery by some deer poop pellets. Dad helped me with the camera. The live stream was started and I had no more excuses to resist the fact that you are gone.
I focused on gripping the handle of the yellow and black umbrella, by the flowing river beneath blue-green hills on this rainy grey morning. It’s beautiful, this place you chose to rest. It is peaceful and it is full of gentle, earthly wonders. Tiny red lichen, pine trees, green moss, yellow grass, an island across the river.
As the Catholic priest said a lot of ritual things about God and Jesus and Heaven and sprinkled holy water on that little box it still didn’t feel real. I cried as quietly as I could. That grief sits in my chest now as I sit here on that same day, remembering what it was like to have to bury you.
I was not ready when my father beckoned me to come to you and scoop dirt on top of you. My body resisted. I sobbed aloud, I wept with abandon and it still did not express the well of grief within me. I begged my father for help. I could not walk to you. I could not see you there, I did not want to.
But that isn’t the way of the world, is it? At least not my world where I try to face reality as best I can with the meager tools I have. My father helped me. He put the trowel in my hand. I tried to put it in the bucket of dirt, Grandpa, I really did, but it was so hard. My body did not want this. My body is in denial. I did not want to cover you with dirt because I did really know that it was you in there. It was you in that box. It is you now in the ground.
My aunts and uncles and father kindly waited while I tried to breathe and let the panicked resistance in my heart slow—Not go away, just slow down long enough for me to perform the action. I scooped the dirt and still I could not bring myself to cover your grave.
The words of my best friend Billy came to my mind:
“Stay strong,” he had said to me last night. And oh Grandfather, I had to try harder than I’d ever had to before to move my arm and drop that clump of warm, damp brown earth down on top of your box. I said some things to you that I hope you heard then, you being in that box and all. I will leave those things between you and I, and perhaps anyone who could decipher my weeping babbles, as I finally did drop that scoop of earth on top of you.
I was on my knees, I could not fathom any other way to grieve you. To say goodbye. We were both in the earth. It was the closest I could be to you, one hand in your grave, touching the soil that covers you even now.
Here’s the thing, Grandpa. I’ll be back to see you. I know now that you are gone. My body faced it. I faced it. My father held me. My aunts and uncles held me. I had to do it, I did do it, it is done. I’ll probably be back soon to see you, honestly, and we will talk again. You know, I only live 90 minutes away. 70 if I’m playing with time.