I've never understood the grief associated with loss because it's always been irrelevant. I've never known how to react to others that I'm trying to comfort. I've never been sympathetic enough. And I know that now.
In the fall 2011, I had to move home from Norman. I was crossing my fingers that I would get accepted in OU's Italian abroad program in the spring but didn't want to be committed to a lease so I moved home. Moving home is hard for students. You get used to your space and being alone. You like solving your own problems. You like being able to make a Walmart run at 12:30am if you need to without anyone asking questions. You like it when no one's there to ask, 'do you have homework?' You like not having someone noticing the enormity of junk food you consume during test weeks. Moving home means a lot of eyes and comments. That being said, I consider my relationship with my parents to be pretty normal. We call each other, I ask for advice, meet up for coffee, whatever. But when I move back home, the dynamic shifts. We suddenly need to discuss everything I do: "Is this your dish you didn't put in the dishwasher?" "Why are your shoes by the back door instead of in your room?" "You should probably go to bed, right? Since you have a big day tomorrow?" "So what internship do you have lined up for the summer?" "How are your grades?" "What'd you make on that test?" Etc. This particular semester, I was back home and hattttting it.
My parents were fighting again and I was furious with them for it. My parents come from a long line of ignorers. I constantly have to fight the innate urge to blow people off when they disappoint me because it's in my blood, I swear. I was angry and tired of it and started packing my bags. It's a funny thing when kids get it in their heads that they want to leave because so much of our lives are financially dependent on our parents. In the heat of the moment, we think: "Cut off my cell phone? PUH-lease. I don't need a phone -- I'll survive. Take away my car? Yeah, okay, I've lived without one long enough -- I can do it again." Don't be stupid, kids. In today's society, you can't live without your phone or car. Stop being dramatic. With my bags packed and my face full of angry tears, I found my car in my grandpa's driveway. It was 10:30pm and when they answered, they held a crying Courtney, stroking her hair for over an hour while she complained about her 'terrible' parents, their children. At the end of my rant, my grandpa simply said, "You have the best daddy, I've always known it. He loves you. It's going to be okay. Meanwhile, stay as long as you'd like." I stayed at their house for four days until I ran out of clothes and I went home like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs.
What I want you to take from this story is this: 1) My maternal grandfather loved my dad. Here I was, telling him about my parents inability to get it together and instead of showing favoritism towards his daughter, he reminded me that he loved my dad and my dad loved me. Then he gently showed me that in my anger, I had to remember the good in others. Because, after all, we are but human. 2) My grandpa took care of me on many occasions but this one time was really memorable. How many people do you know who will take you in after normal daytime hours to let you cry on their couch? It's a great memory for me to have of him because he was constantly teaching me lessons without meaning to -- that's why he was one of the few people who didn't irritate me when he talked about God. Because he really walked with Him.
My biggest fan passed from this life on Thursday and it's been the weirdest series of emotions I've ever encountered. Here are a couple of things that I've learned in the past week:
1) You will always, always be surprised by the people who comfort you and the ones that don't. My family has been dealing with a lot of hurt, not only in the last 2 weeks, but in the last 6 months. My grandfather found out he had lung cancer last August. His cancer was much larger and incurable by the end. There was only a 6 month fight and to the bitter end, he just knew he could beat it. His mother lived to be 101 years old and both of his sisters, Marie and Noni lived into their 90s. He was only 78 and told me on more than one occasion that he thought he had 10 more years left. So in his last 6 months of life, while he was fighting for his life, I was really disappointed in how little everyone seemed to care. The people we thought would be comforting and present were no where to be found. I'm a pretty strong individual so the first emotion I felt when this was happening was anger. Where are you? I need you and you're not around. My mom, though, is a tender spirit and I know that some of this absence was disappointing to the core of her bones. I wish for her sake that people would have been different.
2) Death of a patriarch doesn't encourage the family to get over past conflict and comfort each other -- things stay the same in that way. I've never been remotely close to either side of my family. If you ask any member, they will all give you a different reason why. I've been called a snob, I've called others the same, and sometimes, it's just a matter of siblings who don't get along perpetuating the cycle with their own children. When you have a mutual interest in a godly, intelligent, special man like my grandfather, you assume that his death will initiate a certain level of togetherness - of deep-rooted loyalty. When that doesn't happen, it's a little heart-wrenching. There goes the only tie that bound us together and now we no longer have anyone to force us to inhabit the same space. I think I've always had serious insecurities with regard to family. I'm worth it. I'm worth knowing. I have opinions. I have humor. If you would give me a chance, you'd like me. But instead, we glaze over each other's faces and don't talk. He would be disappointed.
3) Burial is silly. As we were packing up to leave the grave site, I couldn't help but feel so empty about being there. I think you assume that resting a person's body would make you memorialize the spot. But I just thought, "If he can see this, he's probably rolling his eyes." There's no spirit in there. He's wherever you go after. We're taking him and burying him in an expensive wooden box, putting a massive stone on top and crying over this aged and broken body. We're theatrically disposing of what will soon be dust. I believe in honoring the dead and I wouldn't have you disrespectfully dispose of his body but I think I left very certain that I want to be cremated.
Me and my grandpa became really close when I started college. I don't remember why -- it was kind of sudden. I think it was my grandma's stroke that made me realize time was short. My grandpa started looking tired before we even knew he was sick but looking back, it has become more obvious to me in retrospect. His eyes changed and he frequently had coughs and perpetual colds. But I really don't know what made me begin my weekly trips to his house. I think I felt better there with them and began becoming such a regular that when I skipped a week, I got a call asking if everything was okay.
There was a period of time when I didn't have a car yet but I was starting school at OU and couldn't be without one. I borrowed my grandpa's car, a '88 Honda Civic with peeling paint and an awesome personality. He was consequently named Charles (Charlie) because he reminded me of a rough-around-the-edges war vet with a raspy voice. My grandpa was a fit of giggles when I named him Charlie, and took no time at all to adopt the name, too. When I was in Italy, grandpa posted a comment on this blog, signing off as 'Owners of Charlie:'
They sold Charlie last week before grandpa had even died.
Last fall, while he was undergoing treatment, he sent me a text that said, "Go check out Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address." I watched it and was so moved. Grandpa knew I was confused about the future and what I wanted to do with my life and he said it would help me figure it out. In the address, Steve says, "You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle." He knew I needed to hear someone say that but after watching the address, I knew he took a lot from it, too. Steve had battled pancreatic cancer and spoke of death in the video. He said, "No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away."
After watching that, I knew he meant it for me but I knew he also meant it for him. I wondered how he felt about death. I know he went through stages of fear and anger but I think that was mostly because he couldn't imagine even heaven without the rest of us that he loved. I think he still had things to show and teach us, which is what hurts most of all. After that, we would periodically send each other messages about Steve Jobs, an undeniably brilliant man who brought us both a little comfort.
I think most of all, I wanted him to know that I loved him and had come to value him as a friend. I needed him because he was a constant and a mentor. I needed him to live to see my graduation from college that he'd heard me complain so much about. I needed him to watch me walk down the aisle and marry my best friend. I needed him to meet my babies so they could fall in love with him, too.
In the last week, we've heard encouragement from a lot of people who knew my grandpa. Two people have unknowingly said the perfect things. One was my grandpa's hairdresser up until he was bald, who told my dad, "Ron used to always talk about his texts with Courtney. He was always talking about how much he enjoyed hearing from her. He loved her so much." And the other was D Weaver, who said, "In the months preceding his death, I used to talk to Ronnie on the phone and he'd say, 'Courtney's been there for it all and before. She's my girl.' He loved you sweetie, hold onto that." There's no greater validation than knowing that he valued me. Because, God knows I valued him.
I never knew when our last conversation would be and that made me really nervous. Two short weeks before he died, I was staying the night with him and he was really quiet. He got that way towards the end. He had texted me earlier in the day with a simple, "Can't wait," in anticipation of our little slumber party. His body was worn out and he'd try and stay up to talk but he knew I didn't mind if he slept so he'd drift in and out. He tried to get up to greet me but stumbled into the doorway and stayed there, unable to move. I hugged him there and grandma helped him back to his recliner. Those moments were hard to stomach. I waited till grandma went to the kitchen and I went and sat by his feet:
Me: I need you.
Him: I need you, too. You've been there since the beginning.
Me: I love you, a lot.
Him: I love you, a lot, too. You can tell when people love you because they grieve before you're gone. Whatever happens, I just want you to be happy.
I cried in his chest for few minutes while his tired hands ran through my hair. That was our last private conversation and I think I somehow knew it was going to be. It was the next Sunday that I tried to call him and there was no answer. He had been admitted to the hospital and I didn't know yet. I hurried there to find him cut and bruised. In the week since I last saw him, he had been falling a lot and grandma hadn't called us. There was a knot on his forehead and a gash on his arm. He was just so tired but tried to talk to us as much as he could. Before I left I turned over my shoulder and said, "Sassafrass." He said, "Root-n-tootie," our old farewell from my childhood.
Over the next 2 weeks, he deteriorated to nothing but a comatose state. He would focus on your face long enough to respond but then the morphine would take over again. He came out once long enough to tell Robert and Richard that he thought he was going to make it, a fighter to the end.
Thursday, at 5:46, he left us with a tear in his right eye. My mom was alone with him and I was glad. I thought it seemed like a beautiful thing to behold -- such a respectful, reverent moment for a daughter to witness. But I can't seem to decide what the tear meant. I knew he didn't want to die but was the tear sadness? Because I'd hate to think he was sad. Was it pain? Because I hope he wasn't hurting. Or was it because he didn't want to leave us? Because I hope he didn't.
"To lose someone you love is to alter you forever. The pain stops, there are new people but the gap never closes. This hole in your heart is the shape of the one you lost - no one else can fit it." -Jeanette Winterson
