Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes (Part I)

“Hello?” It was my dad. His voice was much softer than usual, undulating as he tried to gather his words. “Hey, honey.” His voice had the nasal effect of someone who’s been crying, “Richard called — they don’t think Grandma’s going to live much longer. She may not live past today.”

I felt like I had just awoken from an anesthetically-induced stupor, my mental faculties still in the recesses of my mind, fogging up my ability to respond. I stared at nothing in particular as the tears filled my eyes and blurred my vision. I responded with the only word that came to my lips, “Ok.”

“I’m going to get into the shower and then head over there to see her. Now, you don’t have to come, and I don’t want you to feel guilty if you don’t want to, but I thought I’d see if you wanted to.”

“I… I don’t… know.”

That evening we were going to go to a comedy club. My brother had procured a bunch of tickets and had hoped for it to be a sort of late birthday celebration for me since I was old enough now to go to one.

“Well, look, I’ll make it easy for you. Why don’t you stay there with Ben and go to the comedy club tonight. You can see Grandma tomorrow.”

The fog began to lift from my mind, and panic took its place. “But what if she…” I gulped, not wanting to utter the word, “dies?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, sweetie.”

I tried to think, but all my mind focused on was the possibility of Grandma dying before I got a chance to see her.

“I’ll go with you.”

I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to witness her death. I didn’t want to put myself through that torture. More than that, though, I didn’t want her to go through it alone. I didn’t want what might be her last hours in this world to be lonely and dark. I couldn’t bear the thought that her last memories before death might not include me, and I knew that I would never be able to forgive myself if I went out that evening and something happened.

I got up off the couch and headed upstairs to shower and get ready. As I walked up the steps my mind whipped from thought to thought so rapidly it was hard to think. It made me panic. I said to myself, “Is this really happening? This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening,” over and over from the moment I set the phone down to the moment I stepped into the shower.

The water hit my bare skin, and my emotions ruptured. I didn’t even try to hold them in. I sobbed and I wailed as my hands slid through my waterfall of hair, fingers gripping the top of my wet head and my fingernails digging themselves into my scalp. Naked and alone, I bared my soul to the Lord. I exposed my pain in a most inarticulate and infantine prayer. I cried out, “Whyyyy? Please don’t do this! Not now! I’m not ready to let her go. Please, please, please. Just… not now, please not now. Please let her get through this. Please let her make it. Let her be ok. I beg you, please.”

My mind raced. She might not see me graduate from college. She might not see me get married. She might not see Sarah get married. She might not see any of us have children of our own. Then it struck me. She was my last grandparent, and she might die. I’d spent the past two and a half years going to school 1000 miles away from home, 1000 miles away from her. I even remember the day she looked at me misty-eyed with her lips retracted and pressed together, trying to hold the emotion back, right before she said to me, “Oh, I wish you weren’t going to school so far away.” At that moment, upon recalling that memory in my mind, I felt as if I had committed the greatest transgression of my life. I felt as if I had betrayed of the dearest people to my heart, and I was afraid that she might die and that would be the memory of me she took with her. I felt weak, and I leaned my right shoulder against the shower wall as my body slid down the side and collapsed in a lump at the bottom of the bathtub. I sat there, letting the water pelt me, half wishing each one was a stone.

I turned again to prayer. “Lord, please let her stay, or at least let her last long enough to see her.” I took a deep breath, “She… she joked before I left, said she’d try to wait for me to get back before — but she laughed. She smiled. The wrinkles around her eye scrunched up. She was fine! She was fine, damn it!” I pounded my fist on the side of the shower wall with all the strength of a straw wrapper. I let tears overtake me once more. I sighed, I took another deep breath, and I pulled myself up. I went about showering until I realised I had cussed while talking to God. My first inclination was to gasp, cover my mouth in surprise and then apologise. Or rather, that would have been my normal inclination. For some reason, my cussing didn’t particularly tug at my guilt. Truth be told, I didn’t really care, and I figured God understood. It’s a rarity for me to cuss at all, but at that particular moment I had wanted to yell a lot worse than I had. It was not that I was angry at God — I wasn’t, but I was angry and I was distraught and I was confused. I had just been jerked out of one stressful situation and thrown headfirst into another without my lines.

Having shared my initial pain and anger with the Lord, I turned to Him once again, “God, I’m not ready for her to go. I don’t want You to take her yet, but if You have to, let it be painless for her. If You have to take her, let me see her first and let Marianne be waiting there to greet her when she makes her way to You — Mother Mary, pray for her. Watch over her, please. She’s so very good. She loves you, I know it. Please help it be easier for her — Lord, please help me. Help all my family handle this and feel Your consolation, but please especially help me. I don’t want to let go. I’m not ready to. I can’t. Please, help me. I really could use some guidance now. In Your most holy and gracious name I pray. Amen.” I made the sign of the cross, turned off the water, pulled the curtain back and grabbed my towel to dry off.

After I had gotten dressed, I began folding my clothes on the bed to repack. My brother knocked on the door, “Are you decent?” “Yes.” He came in, saw me folding my clothes and let out a half laugh, “You probably don’t need to fold those.” I sniffled and grabbed another shirt to fold. “Do you need any help?” he asked. “Oh, no,” I responded, “I’m fine.” My words were more to convince myself than him. Ben grabbed some clothes anyway and joined in on folding my clothes on the bed. I need to be doing something — anything. We folded in silence which was broken only by my sniffling. He seemed just as willing to ignore my sniffles and tears as I was to pretend they weren’t happening. After everything was folded, I started packing the clothes away. Ben said something — I don’t remember what — but I let out a sob and hugged him. Then I turned around, wiped my eyes and finished packing my clothes. Ben picked up my suitcase, I my backpack and purse, and together we went down the stairs and left the house in silence, save for the remaining sniffles.

(This is the first of what will probably be several parts.  I am choosing to recount this very personal story in installments for two reasons — 1.  It would be entirely too long and no one would read it, and although I have written a lot of pointless things on this website, I do not think that this is one of them, and 2.  Writing this is hard on me, as it is very emotionally exhausting.  I’m sure you’ll understand my reasoning for not wanting to subject myself to something this difficult all at once.)

There’s something about her hand holding mine
It’s a feeling that’s fine
And I just gotta say
She’s really got a magical spell
And it’s working so well
That I can’t get away

I’m a lucky fella
And I’ve just got to tell her
That I love her endlessly
Because love grows where my Rosemary goes
And nobody knows like me

It keeps growing every place she’s been
And nobody knows like me

If you’ve met her, you’ll never forget her
And nobody knows like me

–Edison Lighthouse

I was sitting on the couch with my brother at his house early in the afternoon when his cell phone rang.

I had just gotten into town from Boston the evening before.  Ben had been waiting at the airport to pick me up, a Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha from Starbucks in hand.  I noticed him immediately as I came down the escalator, but I looked down at my feet to hide my rising excitement and the sheepish smile that broke across the surface of my face the moment I saw him.  I tried to contain the increasing desire to run to give him a hug by forcing my legs to maintain a slow, casual pace.  I hadn’t seen him in months — I was happy.  I hadn’t slept in days due to the stress of finals and packing and then a cancelled flight, and there he was holding coffee — I was ecstatic.

When we got to the car, I gave him a little present.  It was a keychain with Stewie on it, and it had six buttons, each of which produced a famous phrase voiced by Stewie himself: “Who the hell do you think you are?”; “Stop mocking me!”; “Damn you, vile woman!”; “I come bearing a gift.  I’ll give you a hint: it’s in my diaper and it’s not a toaster.”; “You shall rue this day!  Well, go on!  Start ruing!” and “Put me through to the Pentagon!”  It was for children ages five and older.  Ben loved it.

Ben asked if I wanted to go see Grandma, which I immediately agreed to.  I had tried to call her several times while at school, but no one ever answered and eventually, I couldn’t get through at all.  Grandma was always the first person I’d go see when I got home since she lives fairly close to the airport, but Ben didn’t go the way we normally go.  He drove much, much farther.  I asked where we were going, and it was then that he told me Grandma was still in the nursing home.  I immediately asked why no one had told me she was still there, and Ben said that Dad didn’t know what to say and that he didn’t want to upset me while finals were going on since I’m so sensitive.  Ben told me that Grandma was fine, and that the last time he saw her she was sitting up and wheeling around in a wheelchair; he said she looked fine.

Tears began to fill my eyes and flow down my face when I walked into the room and saw her.  She was sleeping.  Ben said, “Hi, Grandma.”  I went over to the bed and sat on the edge next to her.  I picked her hands up and held them in mine.  I said, “Hey, Grandma, it’s me, Lindsay.”  She moaned and moved around a little bit in her sleep, but she didn’t wake.  I pulled one hand away and put it on her forehead and caressed her skin with my thumb.  Ben asked me if I wanted to wake her up.  I was choked up, but I managed to say, “No.”  He asked if we should get going then and I just nodded my head.  I got up off the bed and I leaned over to kiss Grandma on the forehead.  She moaned again.  She looked like she was in pain.  I said goodbye and turned away.  I grabbed a handful of tissues and went over to Ben.  I clutched his jacket with one hand and I buried my face in his chest.  Between sobs I said that she looked like she was in pain.  He assured me that she wasn’t in any pain and that she was perfectly fine.  He added that she looks a lot better when she’s awake.  I dabbed at my eyes with the tissue, sniffed a couple of times, placed the tissues in my pocket and walked out with my brother, neither of us saying anything.

We went to go get food, and during the drive Ben tried to distract me with his new GPS and by making jokes.  Once we got to the restaurant of his choosing, he suggested that I get a drink.  It was the first time that I was home since I had turned 21.  Not drinking all that much, I didn’t know what to order.  Ben ordered me a tequila sunrise.  I sipped it when I first got it.  It was strong, but I liked it.  I only got about halfway through it by the time we left.  My mind was elsewhere.  We headed back to his house so he could take care of Gryffin.  I was going to stay at his house for a few days to spend time with him, my sister-in-law and Gryffin, who I had not yet met.  That evening was the first time that I met Gryffin, and the next day I was awakened to him licking my face.

Ben answered the phone.  I don’t remember anything he said — I think he was telling my father about the previous night when he took me to see Grandma — but I remember that his facial expression didn’t seem to change while he was talking.  Eventually, he looked over at me and held out the phone, “It’s for you.”  I grabbed the phone, and that was when everything changed.