Lil E explains: His resolution

He woke up on New Year's Day and crawled into bed next to me. He started doing this over winter vacation, reverting back to a way-back-when routine of our early days in this home, mornings when we didn't have to arrive at school at a precise time, mornings when I cherished waking up to the snoozy snuggles of a 3-year old. But now he's six and it's 2011 and that first morning of the year, I held on tight as he rubbed his eyes and told me his intent for the months ahead.

TO BE CRAZIER.

He said it like that. In caps. Pretty bold. Assured. Like he'd been thinking of it for weeks while building some 890-piece Lego command center that I gave him with absolutely no intent to follow those directions myself. As if he pondered it over plastic bricks and beheaded Star Wars guys, some perfectly devised resolution for a kindergartener with bins overflowing with toys and pretty well-set schedule of activities and visitation and playdates and "iCarly."

"Yeah, that's it," he confirmed aloud. "To be crazier. Uh-huh."

"You've given this a lot of thought," I noted.

He nodded, brushed wayward bangs from my forehead.

"In fact, the way you say that makes me wonder," I said from across the pillow, "if your intent to be crazier means that you have not been crazy enough in the past year."

"Yeah," he said thoughtfully. "That's what I think."

"Well then, how will you be crazier exactly?"

Before I was done asking, he showed me that being crazier -- at least to a six-year old -- entails really amping up the sound effects. So there's that.

After taking a few days to really nail how this whole thing's going to go down, Lil E had this to report on this, which very well could be the resolution of a lifetime.

"Being crazier just means...welllll, jumping around. Dancing...like CRAZY dancing. Making goofy noises.

JUST BEING STRANGE. Being weird a lot more. Shake my booty. You know, like you like to do.

Also? You know how Abby dresses kind of crazy? Doing that but like, 1000% more! Or even 300% more. REALLY CRAZY! Like wear a wig to school! YEAH! Or a clown nose. That would be SO. AWESOME.

Pick my nose a lot. Scratch my tushy.

Tell potty jokes probably. Be really annoying to mommy. Jump on Daddy's tummy and poke him."

I stopped him there.

"Waiiiiit a second. Being crazier involved annoying your mommy but poking your daddy? That seems wrong."

"OK! OK! Annoying my mommy AND my daddy."

"Better," I said. "Much better. Continue on."

"Singing kind of loud. Swallowing air and then making burp sounds. That's crazy, right?

Yeah, I think that's crazy. Can I say p-o-o-p at the dinner table? How about t-o-o-t? Because I could make those sounds too! Like this, like with my mouth. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Crazy.

Is there anything else I shoud do to be crazy?"

I suggested be naked more often, or at the least commando. But honestly, I think this kid needs another couple of years before he really jumps into those wholeheartedly.

Until then, I think this list pretty much covers it. And his tiny little naked tushy.

It looks like it's going to be good to be six and crazy in 2011. If those first few hours of the year and these last few days are a good indication of his commitment, and I am quite sure they are, he's really going to see this project through.

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When the grief hit

I've been avoiding this post, at first because it was just too much given that there was a funeral and family and many details. And then, because I was just feeling the grief subside and have just not wanted to welcome it back in -- to my chest, to my thoughts, to my blog.

The funny thing about grief is, though, you never know when or how hard it will hit you. Oh, how it hit me.

I got the call my grandmother died on a Thursday morning. I sat quietly in my desk chair for a moment, trying to push the processing, trying to make that thought settle in sooner than it was. I kept thinking, "I don't know what to do with myself. I just don't know what to do." Did I go back to work, tapping away at my keyboard, programming my part of a website? Should I pack a bag for the unscheduled funeral? Unload the dishwasher? Go for a run? The questions piled up but I just sat there, unsure and unsteady.

It was very quiet in my home. There was the ping of IMs and emails coming through, the sound of cars outside. For a few stretched-out moments -- maybe longer -- there was a hush and it made me anxious. Just as a breathed out, perhaps to dismiss the discomfort and silence, deciding to hammer out a few work tasks before I made any other moves, the tears came.

The tears came and they came and they came. I sobbed. Loudly. Mascara lined my face and palms and was smeared across my neck. I cried for a pain deeper than I could have imagined would come. It was the grief of losing a grandmother I really lost years ago. It was relief that her body and mind were finally at peace. It was sadness for myself, for the angel food cake she'd never make again, for the halt of her handwriting on a notepad decorated with pansies, for ache for her long fingers wrapped carefully around my own.

I thought making peace with her disease long ago meant that I'd be calm and OK when she died. But I was not. I was kind of a wreck.

My dad called then, and I told him the only thoughts I could think: "I don't know what to do with myself."

He responded with what I suppose people intuitively know to say when someone dies: "Come over. We have lots of lunch meat."

So I went. With him, my mother and I cried and made sandwiches and phone calls and arrangements. I set up the memorial donations. We went over the obituary, written days earlier by my mother. I needed to be with them, to busy myself but also to be hugged and told it was OK to let the grief spill all over me.

It was sad and hard and I didn't have it in me to make it poetic or pretty. This time, this one time, I didn't.

I have felt guilty accepting sympathy and expressing so much pain since this marks the passing of my grandmother, a very old woman who lived much longer than she would have wanted to. It feels unfair that people lose babies and partners and parents and I am this upset. The truth is, I just am. I just am.

It took some time to tuck away all the emotion of slowly losing one of the most important people in my life, so I imagine it will take some time to heal.

In the obituary, my mother quoted something we saw inscribed on a gravestone years ago and were so touched by. "Her passing," it said simply and profoundly, "was like the ceasing of beautiful music."

Perhaps that explains both the emptiness and the silence when Grandma Alice died. The music, however faded, was still somewhere in the background of our lives and my mind. That music has come to rest and I miss it so.

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The business of dying

My grandmother is dying. It is not a surprise. She is 102-years old. Her brain has been consumed by Alzheimer's for more years than Lil E has been alive and now, her body is catching up. We've rushed to be by her side six or more times in the last few years, convinced the hour would soon arrive. Somehow, her body miraculously recovered, and days later, she'd be smiling at one of us or patiently waiting for a nurse to feed her spoonfuls of ice cream for dinner.

It has been exhausting and still, a gift to sit by her side, noting how the wrinkles have seemed to fade on her still-rosy pale skin, in awe of the black streaks that have made their way through her silver hair, silently praying thanks to have her one more day.

The day is coming. The hour will soon arrive.

Her heartbeat is slowing. She has refused more than a sip or two of juice for four days. Her breathing is shallow. She has slipped into unconsciousness. Grandma Alice is finally, mercifully dying.

My mother is with her, conscientous and whispering to her mother that it is ok to let go, that we love her, that we understand. She sang all of the songs my grandmother has loved for a century -- without asking I know that The Old Rugged Cross and Let Me Call You Sweetheart were among them. She filed her nailes, smoothed lotion on my grandmother's hands, prayed.

Now, we are waiting. On the phone last night, my mother and I went over the plans made and paid for years ago for my grandmother's funeral. She wanted pink roses. My mother asked if I thought adding pink poinsettias would be nice too. I do.

She told me stories she wanted to include in my grandmother's obituary. She asked aloud how much it costs to have a long one in two papers and then said, "Never mind, it doesn't matter how much it costs really."

I've composed other posts, the ones about Thanksgiving and other things, but the one about Grandma Alice has been in the way. I've put off making plans. I've worried myself with unimportant logistics, like whether we will make Lil E's winter assembly performance on Friday and if I need my oil changed.

I almost cried when I imagined mother's and grandmother's hands entwined, thinking I would never put lotion on her hands myself again, never brush her hair or place my head on her shoulder, just as I did as a little girl and even when I had to lean over the rails on her hospital bed.

I've almost cried several more times, talking to Lil E about the plans, the details, what may happen over the course of this week. Instead, I've breathed in and answered a thousand questions that make me understand how big this moment is for all of us -- Is it true you can die in your sleep? Is your spirit invisible as it lifts from your body? What do you imagine heaven to be? What if you die with your eyes closed? Can we bring flowers to the cemetary? Can we take cookies to the party after the funeral? Will I miss School Spirit Week? What does it feel like when you die?

Other people have died in the time Lil E has been on this earth, but none that he remembers. And he will remember this. Even in this waiting, we are teaching this child about what it means to die and how it is to grieve. I am centered and still and calm in that. Those moments do not bring tears.

I brought up suitcases, made a list of things to bring, packed up snacks and toys and reminded myself to take the framed photos of Grandma Alice and me off of my wall for the display at the funeral. Still, I did not cry.

But today, when I jumped off the treadmill, realizing I had a doctor's appointment in far less time than it takes to drive there, and, on rushing there, was called by another doctor to see why I wasn't there for a different appointment downtown...I felt flustered and angry at myself for flubbing appointments and screwing up my schedule and having to speed across the city in sweaty running clothes. That's when I cried.

I apologized to the second doctor, promised to reschedule, apologized again. And then the tears. Just tears of sadness, all bottled up under the reserve of waiting until the time.

But the time, at least for crying, is now, as we wait. I've rationalized that my grandmother's death will one day be a blessing because she'd be so mad she was still alive, she'd be so prayerful that younger people's lives have been lost while her own soldiered on, that she has had so many years and these last have not been lucid. I've neutralized because the ups and downs of nursing home emergency calls have taken their toll and because I made peace six years ago with losing the grandmother I knew.

Still, it's painful to pull away completely. Time is ticking. The hands are pulling closer together and I am just so sad.

Looking back on my grandma's life:

• I am my grandma's girl: Grandma Alice turns 101

• My grandmother is a century old

• She once was a baker

• ...a flower lover

• and a woman who adored babies.

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