Dolores is 87

my grandma is 87 now. yesterday was her birthday and my family threw her a party. her house. we all chipped in to get her a new chair. her old recliner broke. she hoped it wasn’t electric. it was. she’ll enjoy it anyways. i think my connection to nature comes from her. we fed birds stale bread at the beach, her back porch held various plants, dried butterflies, and rocks. bee stingers would find their way into my shoes and shock my vulnerable soles. the sting changed my step. the grass became a battle ground. but sometimes i would forget again and the dying bee, would say good night as the weight of my entire being put it to rest. and yet, that hurt me. so i feared bees. life wasn’t so bad otherwise. it had only just begun. i was apprehensive then too. forgetting my apprehension long enough to explore brave, free, and curious. maybe not unafraid, but here with no where else to go. bees make honey and bees sting. bees spread pollen and create the flowers. the flowers die, we save their petals. we can hold on still. we still see the beauty.

my cousins, we would play with what we could find. boxes, photos, vintage clothes we’d file through, slinking through each and every room, putting together stories of a silent past. we learned about cleanliness and jesus. had something on sourdough bread and something cold to drink. we feared ticks and watched deer. and she pruned and putsed around that yard while we played with mice in the driveway. in an attempt to entrap it. her tail was caught. i shrieked in horror. how come everything in nature, dies? and why is it so beautiful? and why is it so…painful? i have to tell someone this. is this going to happen to me? i’m afraid it might.

87 gives me hope. for whatever reason, i’d like to be here that long too. i want to see as much as i can see no matter how much each peek around the corner of life terrifies me. it scares her too. and as much as she worries, she’s still made it to 87. all of her children have experienced love. all of her grandchildren experiencing the same. isn’t that the point? grandma braved each twist and turn of life. no matter what arose. what we know and we don’t. it didn’t kill her. no gifts! she exclaims. the tiffany lamps in the dining room have my name on them. for when she’s gone. she laughs at my broccoli rabe rebuttal. don’t worry, grandma. it can go in the fridge. she laughs. her neighbor brings her wendy’s baked potatoes when she’s hungry and he stopped by too. at the end of the night, she pulled money out of a box, “i’m going to keep this forever.” brendan looks to me as to say “forever?” now i must reconsider the meaning of forever. a word that plagues me so, as it’s promise is so great and so brittle against the density of time. all things must end. the birds, the bees, the house, the mice, the yard. there’s a pair of tiffany lamps with my name on them. tapped to an index cord. she would like me to have them when she goes. are we on borrowed time? can we please rework the nature of time? she wants to keep her box of money forever. so god, love, make it so…she doesn’t ask for much.

she always told me she wished she was more gentle like me. how fortunate i am to be. to be intrinsically me, isn’t easy either grandma. it hurts and it’s beautiful. but you’ve turned out the be quite the sweetie, the sting of the bee, momma D.