Recently, my final living grandparent died. She was 93 years old, and having lived a long, difficult, but loving and good life, she died in her home, just how she wanted. She had a heart attack walking into her kitchen and was gone before her body hit the floor.
When I heard that she died, I was just returning from a weekend away with Most Recent Man, and I was consumed with accepting just the right level of comfort without revealing too much emotion. (Most Recent Man is now Most Previous Man, but more on that another day.) Later that evening it hit me -- I should tell the Ex.
My grandmother loved the Ex. Loved. Him. The Ex shared the same first name as her father, and she would often comment on their similar, gentle, quiet natures. I swear she thought The Ex was her beloved father reborn. For his part, the Ex treated her with gentility, kindness, and the patience that only a non-blood relative can bestow on someone as they age and grow more pessimistic.
I hadn't communicated with the Ex for months. Our business was done, and I had reached the decision that I didn't want to be his friend, so there was no need. The night I got the news, I sat cross-legged on my sofa, perfectly still, for a very long time trying to untangle my true motivation for the urge to contact him. At the end of it all, when all the strands were combed and gleaming, I decided it would cause me more anxiety to keep it from him than it would to tell him. I sent him the shortest possible text message, including my father's address in case he or his parents wanted to send a sympathy card. Almost immediately he sent the shortest possible text message back, kindly expressing his sympathy and thanking me for telling him. Done. I thought.
Last night, after several days with too little sleep and too many people demanding my attention, I got home late and opened my mailbox. Inside were two cards with the Ex's last name in the return address. Sympathy cards, one from him and one from his parents. The kindest of small gestures, but in that moment of feeling bombed out and beyond rebuilding, I only had anger for a reaction. I stretched my hand towards the garbage, intending to throw them in without looking. I stopped just before dropping them in, and clutched them against my abdomen as I went up to my apartment. They reopened the wound by showing some kind of caring. I would use their unsought messages to stop my own bleeding.
Once inside my door, I opened the card from his parents first. I couldn't read the whole thing through my still-angry eyes. I only caught the last sentence -- "We miss you very much" -- and, seeing black, I threw the card away. The card from the Ex was lovely, expensive -- one of those super-fancy, classy, non-religious, arty cards. He had written a short message, and still seeing black, I could only make out the word "hilarious" before I also threw it into the garbage.
Today I am a little ashamed of myself, but I still took all the trash to the compactor without attempting to read their full messages. I am deciding whether I need to send a thank you note to them. I think Emily Post would want me to, or is it that I want to? That the cleanness of the break is an illusion? I am still clear that I don't want to be his friend, but, goddammit, even after all this time, I want to be missed. Shit, let's be honest: I want to get to reject him a little bit.
Now, after a few clean hours where no one wanted my attention for their aches, or their learning, or their anxiety, I am finding the compassionate home for this childish emotion of mine. Poor little neglected-feeling child, I thought I had soothed you enough, but clearly you needed another minute. Now the child in me is calmer, and I feel I can acknowledge the grace of the gesture. I have the thank you notes all written in my head:
Thank you for your remembrances. Your kind thoughts are appreciated.
Fini.
No comments:
Post a Comment