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Seeds of something fine

In darkness, but not gone

Staff writer

The lunar eclipse was mind-boggling, for those of you who didn’t get to see it in person. I highly recommend you try to catch it next time, y’know, 80-some years from now.

And while I understand it was incredibly significant in it’s own right, standing there staring into the heavens had a special intensity for me Tuesday morning.

My grandma was born on the 21st — the winter solstice, shortest day of the year. She used to joke it’s why she was so short.

She died about a year and a half ago. We’d been losing Grandma as we knew her for quite some time, but the loss still left a gaping hole in my life.

I’m sure she told me stories my entire childhood about her thoughts and feelings on being a grandmother, making married life work, raising three kids and working. It’s not that I wasn’t listening, but as a kid you hear the events more than the truths behind them — or I did at least. And by the time I realized how much I needed to hear the truth of my grandmother’s story from her own lips, that sweet, gentle woman was already in the grip of Alzheimer’s.

I’m left to piece together what I can deduce of her feelings and reflections from the evidence —to figure out what fills the frame, made of the stories she told, by looking at what’s left behind:

Her family. The sound of her voice in prayer. A giggle. A handful of special things I know how to do because she went out of her way to teach me. And the belief that every time we ate out we had to be celebrating something.

I sat there last night staring at the moon, thinking of my grandma in the silence and growing darkness. As the shadow spread across the moon and reached total eclipse, I was surprised that I could still make out a tiny rim of light around the edges, glowing red and a bit hazy.

Despite it being mostly enveloped in darkness, I could still imagine the familiar surface of the moon as I see it when it’s full and bright. Despite it being veiled in shadow, I didn’t have to see the moon to know it was still there.

Thanks, Grandma, I think I get it. Happy Birthday. I’ll see you around.

Last modified Dec. 22, 2010

 

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