What blossoms from grief: A serendipity trail

The Q-tip

I’m walking along the river thinking about my cat. My grandma has been on my mind before this. Five days ago now, Grams died. A hundred years old. Lucid. Finally tired, but still laughing at my jokes when we spoke last. She was vivid as a matter of sheer will, but she was alone and unhappy about it. I wanted happiness for her and sometimes wondered what she was holding onto.

When I got a kitten, she delighted. She was thrilled I’d have something to take care of, something to think about other than myself. She giggled like a girl, as if her body hadn’t retired all its signs of youth.

My cat will need a caretaker when I head out of town. I am thinking on this when I see a cotton swab on the ground, pristine white against the black of Willamette Valley soil. It’s Tommy’s favorite toy. He hunts them from the bathroom and brings them to me like fresh kills. “Funny,” I think. “I’m thinking about my cat and I see a Q-tip on the path.” It could have been a gum wrapper, a cigarette butt, a crumpled post-it note. But it’s a Q-tip. “Hello,” I say in my head. I smile at the simplicity of synchronicity, in this case meaning nothing at all.

Help

I stop there at the Q-tip because the sky has burst open in rain. I take shelter under a pine, watching the sun crack the gray before it gets covered up entirely. I’ll walk again in a few minutes when the thrust of it has passed. I look down and see small pieces of ice.

“Hail!” I say. And as I say it I hear, “Heyelp!” It’s the Southern version of “help,” as spoken by a three-year-old when asked, while looking at the stars, what he thinks his grandma is saying to him from way up there in the sky. She had passed only days before, and his mom and auntie were holding him close. He thought about this as he stared up into the stars, and answered in his child-sized, Arkansas-bred voice, “Heyelp!”

Again I think of that slight serendipity, just enough to notice: Hail, heyelp, his grandma who had passed, mine. And I think, “Grandma’s stuck in the stars.” So I pray for her passage, “Go on, Grandma.” I pray to God, “Let her know she’s welcome.” I pray to our family and loved ones who have gone already, “Make yourselves known so she knows you’re there, you’re waiting, she has a place to land.” After a few minutes the hail stops.

I pass the benches, too wet for sitting. I stand at the intersection waiting to cross and the hail starts again, this time a downpour. Faraway on the horizon, the sun is lighting the hail coming down in slants. The sky is pink over there and streaking dark gray and yellow over here. This time I stand under white-blossomed trees that smell green-y and sweet and subtle. Grandma would love these blossoms.

Hail!

Heyelp!

I imagine why she might be hesitating. “I’m safe, Grandma,” I say. “I’m taken care of.” I have friends, love, memories.

The day of her death and the days following, I hit a snag in my new relationship. It was twenty-four hours after thinking, “Look at that. Grandma waited for me to be honored, cherished and provided for in many ways before she left. She could let go knowing someone’s taking care of me.”

It was a very big snag indeed. An echo chamber of grief and surprise that was too much to hold. I worked it out. And told Grandma there in the hail that it’s all okay. I’m safe. I’m still taken care of. Find your way. Let go.

A new key

I walk home. My building manager gives me a new way to enter by pressing a code instead of having to carry my keys. I have a new way in. A weightless entry.

Hey there

I walk through the lobby and out the side door to elude the rain on my way to the market. In line at Safeway, I hear a familiar sound. An intro and riff I haven’t heard in a long time. I listen closely and pick out the notes. “Hey There, Delilah” plays overhead as shoppers walk around me in the self-serve line. It’s Talia. She heard my prayers. The song floats me in a reverie as I head to a pay station and ring up my groceries. I am going slowly. My nose twitches and I sneeze. I have a hearty nose and usually have to tickle it or look at the sun to get a sneeze out of it. But it twitches again and I sneeze a second time. Talia’s song is winding down and the worker at the self service stations says, “Bless you.” She smiles at me.

I thank her, bag my groceries, and head out the sliding doors as the song ends to silence.

 

Lucille Van Dyke Teeter

December 24, 1910 – April 9, 2011

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I’m reading Kevin Sampsell’s A Common Pornography right now. His style sneaked into and splashed all around in this post.