She took off for
the spirit world in her early 90s, also in March, my junior year of college. Word
came during an evening shift at my campus art museum receptionist job (which, as
I told my former boss the last time I saw her, remains the only job I’ve ever
had that I’ve never complained about), and two of my older (all the way up into
their mid-to-late 20s) co-workers were the first people I told. One mentioned, and the other tacitly endorsed, a theory
about grandmothers and granddaughters. Or maybe it was grandmothers and
grandchildren, period? I can’t even remember whether this was a personal theory
of hers or if she was repeating a bit of insight that was considered commonplace
within the post-adolescent avant-gardish community I sometimes pictured both of
them belonging to outside of their full-time day jobs.
Was it that a woman mirrors the personality of her closest grandmother? Or that whenever you see a naturally assertive woman, it suggests a lovingly influential grandmother had been present? Dammit, I should have listened more carefully, or taken better notes on my life, back then. It’s not so much a theory as it is a futile form of reflective questioning, but this March I wondered if I’d be any different of a person today if we had been granted a little more time together.
Was it that a woman mirrors the personality of her closest grandmother? Or that whenever you see a naturally assertive woman, it suggests a lovingly influential grandmother had been present? Dammit, I should have listened more carefully, or taken better notes on my life, back then. It’s not so much a theory as it is a futile form of reflective questioning, but this March I wondered if I’d be any different of a person today if we had been granted a little more time together.