Luscious

Gifted lilies and lemon antiseptic floated around the room, soft sniffles mingling in with the classical music flowing softly from the speakers. The longer I stared at the gaudy printed carpet, the more it made my eyes hurt. The line moved up, feet shuffling on the carpet. My ballet flat-clad feet scooted forward, squishing the excess water out of them from the unexpected snowfall that morning. 

I found myself face-to-face with the woman in the casket. She had honey blonde hair that was styled into soft curls. She looked like she was sleeping, just like she did most nights at the dinner table. She was wearing a deep red blouse, a simple chain around her neck, a gold heart with sapphires on the chain. Her hands were folded over her abdomen, her nails a deep plum color.

Her nails were never that deep plum color. Not once in the fifteen years I knew her, not ever. They were always mauve or baby doll pink. My grandma’s nail color matched her personality; soft, motherly. My grandma was my best friend, and helped to shape me into the person I am today.

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I was lucky to get almost a decade and a half with my grandma. She was a robust, crass woman who loved with her whole heart and then some. She was the “middle child,” the third born out of six. She loved each of her siblings dearly, and that love oozed into how she treated her son, daughter-in-law, nieces, nephews and grandchildren. She might not have had the most at times, being a single mother with multiple sclerosis (MS), but she always shared what she had.

She was the life of any and every party. It wasn’t a real party until she rolled up, with two to four men lifting her wheelchair with her in it up the porch stairs at my aunt’s house, telling them to stop before they helped her chair up the lip of the front door so she could smoke a cigarette — a Marlboro red when I was little, or a Marlboro gold as I got older.

She lived with my family when I was younger following a health scare that left her on a ventilator for days. I’ll never forget how excited I was the day she was discharged from the hospital and coming home to my grandma sitting in her wheelchair in the living room. I look back at the handful of years she lived with us, and cherish the random walks to Walgreens or trips I would take with her to the mall or physical therapy, because even if I didn’t consciously know it, subconsciously I knew my time with her was running out.

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She died on March 28, 2014. She was only 60 years old. Young for today’s standards.

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The legacy of my grandmother, Linda, or better known as Luscious, will never die. I can’t let that happen. I mean sure, she wasn’t perfect; nobody is. She was trying her absolute best, despite the obstacles thrown her way. I can’t ever remember her complaining about being in pain, or asking why God gave her MS (along with a multitude of other health complications). At the end of the day, she was a woman who loved her grandbabies with her whole heart. I miss her everyday, and say hello to her every time I see an orange monarch butterfly or a crow. I belt along to “Gypsy” by Fleetwood Mac as my message to her, because I still see her bright eyes.

I hope I’ve made her proud, and know that one day I will see her again — in a place where she is pain free, and not bound to a wheelchair like she was earthside.

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I love you, sleep easy until we meet again Luscious.

❣

My favorite picture of my grandma, circa 2000