Grandma Betty

Because so many of my favorite people are well over the age of 60, my wisdom on death should be shored up and ready to flow from a veritable font onto the heart and mind of my child. But, when it comes to death, I’m far more petulant than wise. My reactions surprise me. When I saw at the wake that so many people were mourning my grandmother with much the same gusto as I was, I wanted to scream, “She was a bit of a hussy—don’t you think?” When had I needed to be my grandmother’s one and only? She did have this conspiratorial way that made me believe we were part of a covert cooperative in which she always had my back. Who knew she was so loose-lipped?


And before I could quell that reaction, Sam reported that people were telling him that Grandma Betty was in heaven or with Jesus. Instead of reacting as I hoped—grateful that others were offering my son comfort during a time when I was too busy to do it myself, I had to stifle myself from saying, “Who the hell told you that?” I wasn’t ready for her to be whisked away to the beyond with people beyond our knowing. I wanted her here in this time, in this place with these people. I had lapsed into my own unreality. If nothing else, death makes the real, unreal.


At her house, Sam took a cookie tin and filled it with candy, a sparkly earring, her cigarette case, a pack of smokes and a Betty Boop doll. We dug a hole in her backyard and put the tin there. I wanted the family to gather for when he covered it but this was his service. He asked his dad if they could bury the tin together. They did.


These days, Sam tells me about Grandma Betty, “She’s in Pretend Life with Grandpa Hawk.” He’s repeating back what I told him. Pretend Life is where I psychologically deposit all that can’t be encountered. A place to happily frolic in the imaginary. For instance, Harrison Ford is a Real Life actor but Indiana Jones who lives in Pretend Life can discover treasure. I didn't tell Sam about Pretend Life solely to make my grandmother mythical; rather, I needed (probably more than Sam) somewhere for her to exist to which I still have access. Sam speaks of her with such calm and comfort. I know I had little to do with that. It's as if the comfort he’s found and offers flows serenely from a font. And if I had to guess who helped him shore up that comfort…I might have to admit that it came from a covert cooperative; I did notice when Gram took a cookie from that tin, she gave it to him with a conspiratorial wink.