Clump of dirt

When I visit my mom, we smoke. She lights up a fat cigar and I suck on a camel. I always make sure I have a fresh pack, because by the time I leave they are almost gone. It is not weird to smoke with my mom. Sometimes I wonder what we would do with our hands if we didn't.

Together.

Would we cry? Would we scream? Would we drown inside it all? Or would we laugh until the crazy left us? I am not sure. But when we talk and swap stories, sometimes the words are so heavy, it is the drag that lifts us back up, gives us the pause to catch our breath, and enables us to keep going. This will not be the case forever. But for now, I have given myself a break and I will take it as it is. Until we are ready.

I sat with mom just a week ago on her back porch. The sun warmed us as the ocean air breathed over us. For five hours we sat. Together. Giving and taking strength - comfort. We talked about the monster and how everyone celebrated him. How they cried in sadness and eulogized his life. I shook my head at how blind people choose to be, unable or unwilling to pull the covers back and see what really is. Was.

It was always my plan to go. I wanted to see him dead. I wanted to watch the dirt fall and bury him. I always pictured that with each clump that fell and sealed him under, it would in turn release me. I wanted them to see me, see how unbroken I am. I wanted them to look into my face and remember, remember how they forgot about me, how they pushed me aside, how they failed a little girl and left her to fend for herself. I wanted them to know that the truth is still here and no matter how many miles separate us, the horror of it all will always bind us together in a way distance can never separate.

But I did not go. And my mom did not ask me to.


I have another Grandpa, a real one. One that loved me. One that took me to Padres games. One that told me stories while he smoked his pipe. One that had few words but would nod his head and tell me, "You've done real good, Shannon. Real good. I'm proud of you." One that wasn't sure if it was ok to hug me when I came back to California at nine years old, traumatized and soul broken. One that called me once he had moved to Missouri to tell me he was saved now and he had kept the letter I had written him, telling him about Jesus. One that I wasn't afraid to have my kids know. He was a good Grandpa. The best. He died this past year and I couldn't go. The reasons are many and life, but I was so sad to not be there. To honor him. To show respect for him and all he has done, all he has given.

How could I not go to the funeral of the grandpa I loved and go to the funeral of the one I hated most of my life? The irony of it hit me hard in the gut and I knew I could not do it. I would not give the monster that honor. I refused my presence in his life. I would refuse it also in his death.

My mom told me later how glad she was I was not there, even though she had been so close to asking me to go with her. "I don't think you could have stood it," she said quietly. "I could barely stand it. It made me sick.... You would have been SO angry.I thought about getting up and saying something, telling everyone there who he really was ... but I didn't have the balls." She looked up at me, from her cigar and the sun, "But you would have."

And in that moment she gave me a little piece, a clump of dirt, and my soul moved up. Just a tiny bit higher.