IF I COULD TALK TO MY GRANDMA

Pearl Harbor the film was on last night. Naturally I left it on. It was the scene where the Japanese attack. And boy did they ever. It was hard to watch. Although I’ve seen this film numerous times, I was glued to my television like it was the first time. Watching kids playing baseball in the yard seeing planes fly right over their heads not knowing what was about to happen. The film had me sucked right back into 1941 and what that day might have been like to live it. And it made me think of my Grandmothers. And here’s why.

It’s a crazy world we’re living in today. It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen. It’s odd. And eery. And just straight up weird. And it makes me think, what would my Grandmother say about all of this? Honestly I think she’d be very relaxed and just say it is what is and it’s crazy but it will pass.

What a woman. I’m constantly in awe of women. Especially the women in my family. Their story, their dialogue, their strength. I’m so curious to learn more. And so I’m always circling back in time. To how we became who we are. So this morning when I woke up on another weird day in 2020, I kept thinking about Pearl Harbor in 1941. And this makes me immediately think of my Grandma. (Ironically, I’m not speaking of my Hawaiian grandmother today), but my Irish Grandmother from the Bronx, New York.)

She died when I was in my twenties. She was 74. And I honestly yearned for her this morning. I prayed to her. I wanted so badly to talk to her. To learn from her. To lean on her. And there’s so many reasons why.

Maybe it’s the season I’m in. Or my thirst for learning at the moment. Or maybe it’s because it’s been a hard month. Or day, Or what day is it exactly? With the last 6 months being just so crazy and unknown and indeed very hard, there’s been so much grief. And questions. And then you combine that with everyone arguing about the election, and the economy is dying and we’re all in a state wide panic.

Yeah, it’s been too much.

But it’s nothing the women before us haven’t seen. And I wonder what they’d have to say about it. Only I can’t go back in time. Because as we know, time moves on, without our permission.

When you’re young you don’t appreciate time. (For me anyways.) It’s taken many years and learning and knowledge to become acutely aware of time. And I just didn’t recognize how fast life would go when I was 20. It didn’t occur to me to sit down with my Grandma at her house on a Sunday and ask her about her life. Ask her about what it’s been like living alone without her husband all these years. What it was like to raise 5 kids on her own. What overwhelmed really meant to a widowed mother of 5.

I began to sob. 

I began to talk to her as if she was here. I apologized for even complaining about how tired I was and frustrated with the recent meltdowns my twins have been having. And suddenly I felt her look at me and say, “You’re doing as great as you can do. It’s ok to be sad.”

I sat up and thought about her for a long time. I thought about the beauty of her life and the struggles. I thought about her laugh and sarcasm on any given Sunday at a family gathering where she’d smoke her brown cigarettes and make a joke about being bored. Grandma Joan lived. She did the best she could do. And she always made me feel loved and at home.

But I thought, what if we sat up and had wine together? What if I could sit on her porch with her and and have a conversation? Could I ask her about her marriage to Grandpa? About happier times when he was alive? What it was like to raise 5 kids and watch them grow and have families of their own? Ask her if she still felt stress about being a mother whilst her children were actually adults of their own? 

Was raising babies and watching them grow some of the greatest days of her life?

Tear drop.

So many things I’d ask. I’d probably even smoke a brown cigarette with her, just because. 

Here’s the thing. Grown women have so much to offer. The older I get, the more obvious this becomes. I see it in my mother, in my mentors, in my friends and even strangers. 

Grown women are a pool of wisdom and knowledge and they contain the respite for our unanswered stressed out minds. 

Sometimes I wish I could go back to 1941 and hang out with her. And be her bestie and see what the living was really like. I think we’d be closer than ever. And I think I could learn mountains of savvy and foresight from a woman like her. 

And I honestly think if we were talking right now I think she’d tell me that this unprecedented time in our lives right now will pass. And we will get through it. And we will thrive again one day.

And I think she’d say, pour yourself a drink and relax. You got this.

Gosh I wish she was here. But for now she’s in my memory. A strong, badass, resilient woman that I call Grandma Joan. 

Love you. See you one day through those clouds.