I wrote here several times how it was with my parents. Briefly – they died relatively young, without previous illness, suddenly. Mom fell asleep and didn’t wake up. Out of the blue, it was a huge surprise, a shock that I still can’t get over, let alone somehow understand. Dad followed her in a relatively short time – he couldn’t be without her. Massive heart attack. I was just pregnant, an only child, alone, a stake in the fence was a social creature against me. I had to collect all the remnants of my will, lock it all inside somewhere and not let it out.
Yeah, that was a mistake. Because I didn’t grieve them both properly, it’s now coming back to me like a boomerang. But so what. It happened, life goes on, you say? Well, of course it does. Especially when I have to be there for my daughter. Sometimes I also have such strange things happen where I can distinctly feel that they are both with me. I think about something, immediately that “something” manifests itself. No magic, just hints that only I can understand. The season of spring is beautiful, but I’m glad that Easter is behind me, because it was in this beautiful time of spring that “it” all happened.
In addition, ironically, their birthdays, holidays and the already mentioned “deaths”, as I call them, got involved. What is left for me but to endure it somehow, to take the golden rain, the lilac, to the grave with my daughter, what do I know. Lilac, no, Dad stank. But he still smelled good on my mother, so that they wouldn’t have a fight there!
My daughter goes to kindergarten and has been talking a lot lately (hooray, it’s about time). And she also began to think more about things that she hadn’t considered before. She has a grandmother and grandfather – her husband’s parents, who are their age, the daughter loves them, they her. And he also knows that he has a “grandmother and grandfather from heaven.” We sing to their photos every night before going to bed, that kind of nonsense, rituals, or I don’t know what to call it. And around Christmas she came with the fact that there was a grandmother in kindergarten for Evička – and no grandmother would ever come for her. I didn’t know what to say to that. One grandmother is sick and can’t walk, the other grandmother is in heaven?
I had no idea how to explain the “heaven”. I couldn’t think of anything better than to tell her that grandma and grandpa live on that shining tower with baby Jesus. So that you understand – here we have a big church with a big tower, in which the light shines during the night and in the morning in the dark. And it’s clear that Jesus is walking around (I note, it was at Christmas). So every morning like a fool I waved at the tower of the church to Jesus, mom and dad. Ahem.
It was barely after Christmas, only grandfather and grandmother were waved, but for a change, grandfather started coming for Emilko. After lunch. So, another round of questions, where is grandpa? With my grandmother in heaven, I answered nervously, because I really had no idea how to explain it to her, after all, she is still small. So I told her that they love her very much, that they are sorry that she will never see them, but they are still watching over her. It’s just that they are not visible, but they are with us. And that he can talk to them. And I also told her that when I come to pick her up at kindergarten, either grandpa or grandma will definitely be there. They’re just not visible.
Yes, my daughter’s eyes widened. Invisible grandparent, I heard her thoughts live, no one has. That’s what I got. From that moment he speaks to them. It’s probably just a period, I’m glad for that, before she fully understands the meaning of the fact that THEY ARE NO LONGER, let her talk to them calmly. But the problem is that she NEVER EVEN KNEW them. So they are completely abstract concepts. He only knows them from the photo. Yesterday I caught her talking on the house phone in the hallway. She pretends to be on the phone, yes, but she was on the phone with her grandmother from heaven for the first time. In fact, she was telling her how she was going to kindergarten on Monday, so yeah, um… yoyo. Ahhh! I stared with my mouth open, I snatched the phone from her hand, put it to my ear and really, really waited for a while for my mom to say: “Hey, give me another one!”
And at that moment I remembered that crazy argument. You know that memory that hits you completely, you suddenly remember everything, including the details? So that was it. I was about sixteen years old, I was horrible. A horrible, absolutely disgusting teenage girl, a punk girl who always wanted to fight with someone and fought with herself the most, but she didn’t know it then, so she fought with her parents. And just once, I don’t really know why we had a fight with my mother, so that there was a period of perhaps a month’s silence, crying, prohibitions, violation of prohibitions, scenes…
I know my dad gave me the first slap, I can still see his eyes when he realized what he did. And I note that I fully deserved it, I told my mom that I hated her, worse things, it was terrible, I shouted everything in her face. I was a complete, but complete cow. And I can’t even remember WHY I was acting like that. Apparently she didn’t want to let me do something. I’d cut myself if it was worth it, really. And I realized that after that fight, my mom and I wrote letters to each other. Between themselves. Since we didn’t talk to each other, we wrote to each other.
And they weren’t just letters like “Are you hungry?” “Get something from the fridge” “I don’t have” “I don’t want” “Then jerk your leg…” They were real letters. Damn it, it crossed my mind, I have to have them here somewhere! I started rummaging through the pile of papers that was left after them, there’s a lot of it, files with everything possible, I’ll have to discuss it one day, but I didn’t get around to it. And I found it. Mom kept it separate in such an envelope, because it was probably very important to her.
I got down on my knees and read it all on the ground. It almost grabbed my heart. First apologies, explanations – from my side – understanding, acceptance – from mom’s side. And then just the fun, secret words we had between ourselves, things that only the two of us could understand. And at the very end of all those papers, which were completely covered with tears (this happens sometimes…), I found her letter, a short one, which I may have read at the time, but I didn’t deal with it. And as I wrote in the beginning about those things that happen to me sometimes, that “something” that fits exactly into the situation I’m experiencing, so I held it in my hand again.
I really don’t know how this is possible and it’s not the first time! It’s not creepy at all, it just always “clicks” and clicks into the exact places I want to fill in and don’t know how. So dad or mom will always “help” me. Because in that letter in my mother’s handwriting, among other things, it says exactly what I needed to hear at that moment (read, advise, know!). I’ll leave it uncommented because I’m at a loss for words anyway. And besides, I already know everything! I know that when I’m you know where, when I’m feeling down, when I’m yelling and crying and cursing them for leaving me here, they’ll show up. For example like this:
…you know, when you have your own children, you’ll understand everything. And you will just watch them grow before your eyes. If I live to see it, I look forward, mischievous!, to saving you when your teenage daughter dyes her hair green! And if by any chance I wasn’t there anymore (because both of you and dad will soon bring me to the grave!!!), I’ll still be with you anyway. I won’t miss it even as a dead person, trust me! Maple? See how you’re doing. And you will do well. Everything will be fine, I promise. And I’m also going to see if your windows are washed, which reminds me I have to go wash the stupid windows before dad gets home from work…
Well, I’d better go wash the windows… Have a nice day.
