Not Really Gone

I am rushing Isabelle out the door on a typical Monday morning trying to remember all of the things I want to do in the two hours while she is at preschool. I juggle my purse, car keys, the all important plastic bottle of diet Lipton raspberry white tea that I am currently addicted to, and Isabelle's back pack, while I help her get her other arm into her coat sleeve and lift her into the back seat of the Jeep. We go through this routine like a well-oiled machine, our bodies mindlessly performing the tasks we ask of them while all the while she and I keep up a running dialogue of what she might do in school today. I close her door, walk around to mine, get in, start the car, buckle up, back out of the garage, press the garage door button to close it, and quickly take a gloved hand to brush a stray curl out of my face and tuck it behind an ear...............

All at once I am slammed full force back into my grandmother's kitchen, feeling the heat coming off of her stove, radiating warm against my thigh as something bakes within. I am embraced by two arms, enveloping me like fragile butterfly wings, yet at the same time providing a tremendous sense of security and safety. I feel her baby soft cheek against mine as I stoop to hug her, her slightly scratchy grey hair tickling my nose, and deeply breathe in that smell, that grandma smell, something I cannot describe, but something intrinsically linked with her in my mind. And now here I am in October and she passed away in July and I am sobbing like a baby in my car because I am wearing a pair of her gloves for the first time and I just pushed a piece of hair out of my face and suddenly it was like she never died. Yes, I cried, but really it was such a gift to have such a vivid memory brought forth. God, the mind is powerful.

Part of me doesn't want to wear the gloves because the more I do the less they will bear her scent and the more they will gain mine. Of course, the other part of me does. The part of me that took them in the first place.... the part of me that thought it would be nice to put my hand inside something that once had her hand in it. As if in some way it could link us up once more and in a way we could still hold each other's hand. I know it is silly, but then again, perhaps not. Later that evening I told Clay about it when we went out for our after dinner walk with Isabelle. I told him it was like my grandmother was right here with me, and he stopped me and looked me right in the eye and said, "She is still with you."

I married a really smart man, but that is a blog for another day. (And we don't want him getting a big head).