This blog post was fairly personal and I had to put it down and come back to it; so it took me a while to complete. I thought it a fitting time to finally finish and post it, however, since we are coming up on the yearly observance of her death.
"When somebody dies, a cloud turns into an angel and flies up to tell God to put another flower on a pillow. A bird gives the message back to the world and sings a silent prayer that makes the rain cry. People disappear but they never really go away. The spirits up there put the sun to bed, wake up the grass and spin the Earth in dizzy circles. Sometimes you can see them dancing in a cloud during the daytime when they're supposed to be sleeping. They paint the rainbows and also the sunsets and make waves splash, and tug at the tide. They toss shooting stars and listen to wishes. And when they sing wind songs, they whisper to us, 'Don't miss me too much. The view is nice and I'm doing just fine.'"
A couple months ago, my cousin, Ashlee, posted on her Facebook page that her fiancé made the off-hand comment that she wasn’t sexy. There were a plethora of replies- some funny, some not so much- and I had to throw in my two cents. It wasn’t really to prove her fiancé wrong; it was more to prove a point.
The following was my response:
Every woman has a vagina; but not every woman is sexy. Drag queens notwithstanding, of course. ;)
Sexy is all about how a woman carries herself and how much confidence she exudes without coming off as an unapproachable or intimidating bitch.
Having said that; Ashlee is my first cousin. If you were to blend her, Elizabeth (another cousin) and me together you'd have a clone of our grandmother, Charlotte, who was unequivocally the most sexy woman I've ever *personally* known. She had to ability to walk into a room and make men drool. Men wanted her and women wanted to be her. She commanded attention without saying a word. The way she walked, the way she talked... her very presence made people feel like a million bucks.
And I know my opinion isn't biased just b/c she was my grandmother... she's been dead for nearly 20 years and to this day, I STILL have people tell me what a sexy lady she was. Just two weeks ago, I walked into a local place and the man who owns it knew our grandmother. He just stared at me for a moment and then commented, "My God, as I live and breathe, it's Charlotte all over again." Then proceeded to tell me (as he has several times before) what a sexy, beautiful woman she was.
Now, having come from stock like that... Ashlee can't help but be sexy. It's in her essential make-up; it's in her genes. Perhaps she just needs a man who can bring out the sexier side of her more often. ;)
Yeah, I know, I know… I couldn’t resist the jab at his manhood there at the end. My bad. LOL I’m sure he’ll forgive me.
As I wrote the response, I realized that I’d never written a blog about my grandma, Charlotte. Probably because even after all this time, she’s still a difficult and somewhat painful topic for me to discuss. Not in the piercing serrated-knife-to-the-heart sorta way; more in the dull-ache-that-will-never-heal kinda way.
God, I miss her.
It’s not just her that I miss; it’s the way I felt when she was around that I miss, too. She had a certain zest for life that few ever experience- what the French call, “joie de vivre.” It made her an irresistible magnet. You couldn’t help but want to be around her.
I remember her coming to our house when I was a little girl for Christmas and such. She was almost always late. Fashionably late, she called it. I remember staring out of the window, waiting for her to arrive, being aggravated that she wasn’t already there. But the moment she came in the door, all was forgiven. She had a way of making you forget that you were ever mad at her.
I remember once she brought us bags of dress-up clothes. I really have no idea where those clothes came from- a yard sale? Consignment shop? No clue. But there were green lizard-skin stiletto heels in that bag and that was all that mattered. There were heels and dresses and hats and gloves and purses- a veritable treasure trove of dress-up clothes- and my cousin Elizabeth & I were in hog heaven. I can’t imagine that there were two happier little girls anywhere on the planet that day.
As I think back on that, I realize that my love of shoes probably isn’t a random coincidence.
She taught me to be pretty if I could, be witty if I must, but to be gracious if it killed me.
She taught me the “proper” way to do dishes- starting with the glasses and ending with the silverware. Made sense to me and if I still washed dishes by hand, that’s how I’d do them.
She made me eat liver and onions once. It did not make me a fan, but it taught me to try something new.
My Mama taught me basic table manners, like chewing with my mouth closed; but Grandma Charlotte taught me more formal table manners like sitting up straight, keeping my elbows off the table and the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork. She said that I needed to know formal manners because one day I might have dinner at Buckingham Palace and need to know which fork to use.
At the time, I absolutely believed it was entirely possible that she was right. Hey, it could still happen! Not likely, but at least I won’t look like one of the Buffoons of York if I ever do find myself at a state dinner in the palace.
It won’t matter if I live to be a hundred and ten, I will still be able to recognize her handwriting. Grandma had a beautiful old-fashioned ultra-feminine script, like something you’d see in an old diary. Every now and then when I am going through old photos or boxes of things, I run across her handwriting and it always startles me- in a good way. It reminds me that she’ll never be completely gone. Not really. Not while traces of her linger here and there.
She had a style that was all her own. The flashier, the better. She actually owned a gold lame’ blazer. Liberace, Michael Jackson and Cher notwithstanding, the vast majority of us really can’t pull off wearing something like that. But she could. And she did it with style. On me, it’d look like one of NASA’s satellites had crashed to earth; but on her, it was perfect. Tall and statuesque, she wore clothes like nobody’s business. She was a firm believer in, “if you’ve got it, flaunt it” and, by God, she had it.
Sometimes, I’ll see a well-dressed, refined and polished woman and think of my grandmother. You know the ones I mean- the accessorized women who are the epitome of good breeding. Ladies whose hair and makeup are “just so” and nails are painted a tasteful red. They’re impeccably groomed in a beautifully tailored outfit, color-coordinated Dolce & Gabbana shoes & handbag and silk Hermes scarf. They are women who ooze sophistication and drip gentility. That was my grandmother.
Of course, even in a housecoat and slippers, she was well-dressed. I suppose it’s because she always exuded self-confidence. Always. In every situation. There may be someone somewhere who can remember seeing her out of her element, but I am not one of those people. She was comfortable in every situation. If she wasn’t, she did a damned good job of covering it. Better than that, she made you feel comfortable, too. She didn’t have that snotty, I’m-obviously-better-than-you attitude. If she liked you- and she liked most people- she had a way of making you feel totally at home and completely at ease. She was as down-to-earth as someone like her could be. Those who knew her will know what I mean by that.
She was the kind of woman who, if she’d shown up at a party wearing the same gown as another woman, it would never have been awkward. She’d have embraced that woman like an old friend and spent the evening laughing and telling everyone who’d listen that the whole thing was planned from the start. It wouldn’t have mattered that the women was a complete stranger to her; by the end of the night, she’d have made a new friend.
She had some of the most beautiful pieces of jewelry I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t that they were super-expensive pieces from Tiffany’s, nor were they particularly unique; but they were classic, timeless, and they were her. They defined her, somehow. Or maybe she just knew how to pick good pieces, I don’t know. But she wore them with elegance personified.
If I could have picked any of the pieces, I’d have chosen a gold heart necklace she had. Yes, I could buy myself one that looks just like it, but it wouldn’t be hers. Unfortunately, along with many of the valuables she treasured, her jewelry disappeared shortly after she died. Even more unfortunately, it was probably pawned for a pittance long ago in a seedy pawn shop and is currently hanging around the sweaty neck of some stranger who can’t begin to appreciate that its true value has nothing whatsoever to do with a dollar figure. Such is life, I suppose.
In my romanticized version of the pathetic reality, maybe my grandmother’s necklace was given to this woman as a gift from someone who meant the world to her and maybe she cherishes it as much as Grandma Charlotte did.
At least, that’s the lie I’m comfortable believing.
I’ve always found it interesting how scents evoke memories just the same as photographs do. To this day, I can’t smell Estee Lauder Youth Dew or Super Cologne spray without thinking of Grandma Charlotte. Something about the way it mixed with her body chemistry made it undeniably her. Combined with the smoky odor of a Virginia Slims cigarette, for me, it’s an absolutely unmistakable scent. Once in a great while, I’ll catch the faintest whiff of that particular combination and immediately, my brain ceases to think and, for a split second, I’m transported to another time and place.
She was a proper southern lady and she really did have the ability to make people feel like a million bucks. When she invited you into her home, you were treated like Her Royal Highness, The Queen of England. You were welcome to whatever she had cooking on the stove and given a glass of the sweetest iced tea you’ve ever had in your life.
She also had the ability to tell you to go straight to hell in such a way that you actually looked forward to the trip. You walked away knowing you’d been supremely insulted but felt like a better person for having been told off. Of all the things I inherited from her, that’s the one I wish I had more of.
I’ve been told I look like her by many, many people. As I walked into that store a few weeks ago, I knew what the owner would say- he says it every time I walk in. But this time, he stared at me for a minute longer than he usually does, just shaking his head in disbelief. His exact quote was, “My God, as I live and breathe, it’s Charlotte all over again.”
I really did mean what I said about men wanting her and women wanting to be her. Since I’ve been an adult, I’ve had more than one man tell me how much he’d have loved to have had a shot at dating her. One, in particular, told me that he thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. He said it wasn’t just her pretty face; it was her attitude, too. He said she was one of the kindest people he’d ever known. It’s always interesting for me to hear her described from another’s perspective.
He also said he loved her voice. I’m not sure if he meant her accent or the timbre of her voice but both were unforgettable. She had a thick southern accent. The kind you hear on movies and wonder if anyone really talks like that in the Deep South. I am here to tell you that yes, yes, they do, indeed. She said words like “peppah”, and “buttah.” But it wasn’t corny or contrived; it was smooth and husky from years of smoking.
I’ve heard it said that how you face life is only half as important as how you face death. If that is so, then she was a courageous woman, indeed.
When she started having unexplainable headaches that no amount of Tylenol would alleviate, she cut off her hair, thinking the weight of it being pinned up was causing the headaches. It was only a few short weeks later that she found out she had lung cancer. She chose to fight it and fight she did- in true Charlotte style. She started by packing up her things and moving to my family’s beach house. She also did chemo and radiation.
She fought hard and for a while there it looked like she just might win when the cancer went into a brief remission, but by 1992 it had spread into her brain and there was no beating that. There was only making the best of the time she had left.
She actually teased us and joked with us about death. Macabre, yes, but it was her way of dealing with a situation that was beyond her control. She wasn’t making light of death but she knew that it would be damned near impossible for us to have to watch her die and be helpless to stop it. She always hated gigantic white elephants sitting smack dab in the middle of the room. In her magical way, she confronted it head-on and made it okay to talk about. Talking about it didn’t make it go away completely, of course; it just made it easier for us to forget that she was sick and to treat her normally.
For a while it worked- until the cancer came back.
Cancer is a bitch. Period.
Cancer took her from us- from me- entirely too soon. It’s not fair that she missed my wedding. It’s not fair that she never got to meet my husband- I think she’d have loved him. It’s not fair that she never got to meet her great-grandchildren and not fair that they never had the privilege of knowing her. And it’s damned sure not fair that I can’t pick up the phone and call her or drop by to see her.
There is a song by Rhett Akins called, “If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away.” In the song, he says, “If Heaven wasn’t so far away, I’d pack up the kids and go for the day. Introduce them to their grandpa and watch ‘em laugh at the way he talks…
And tell them we’d be back in a couple of days. In the rear-view mirror, we’d all watch ‘em wave. And losing them wouldn’t be so hard to take; if Heaven wasn’t so far away.”
If only it were that easy. To just go visit any time I’d like. That would work for me. But if I am honest with myself, I don’t want just five more minutes to hear her voice or smell her unique scent- it would never be enough for me. I’m selfish like that.
Whenever I am confronted with something I don’t want to face, I tend to shut down and pull inside myself. I don’t want to go through the motions of getting out of bed, getting dressed and being civilized. And I am an absolute master at finding reasons why these things aren’t necessary so that I won’t have to do them. When she got sick, it was one of those times. So when I say that I’m not quite sure of the exact sequence of events and dates, now you know why.
Thanksgiving of 1992 was hard. Hospice had been called. She’d lost all her hair for the second time. The steroids she had to take in order to keep any food down made her look sick and bloated. Her perfect, pale porcelain skin was ashy and pasty.
Still, we went on as if she wasn’t sick; as if the end wasn’t imminent, knowing all too well that it was. The giant white elephant was back again and this time, he wasn’t budging. We all knew it was just a matter of weeks. Everyone- my Papa (her first husband and father of her children) and Gran, aunts, uncles, cousins- everyone made sure to stay close by. The only ones who ventured further than a couple hundred miles were my parents.
That year, my parents had won a trip to Arizona to accept an award at a convention. As luck would have it, the convention was in December. They debated for weeks whether or not to attend and in the end, they decided to go. While Mama and Daddy were gone, everyone came to our house. Since all the kids would be at Mama’s and since it was still Christmas, I decided that we needed a Christmas tree. That was the first year I did the tree entirely by myself. It helped me to appreciate how much trouble my mother went to every.single.year- year after year- to make our Christmases special.
Looking back, I know it was a desperate attempt on my part to bring normalcy to what was certainly not a normal situation.
During this time, Grandma Charlotte didn’t really recognize anyone. Not well, anyway. She’d have short periods of time where she was completely lucid but there close to the end, I don’t think she even knew where she was.
It was also during this time that Grandma began to slip in and out of deep sleep. I would call these episodes comas but I don’t think that’s really the proper term for it. Each time, they’d think that would be “it” but it wasn’t. I can’t recall exactly, but I think we were called in at least twice because they thought it was over and each time, she’d always wake up again.
I’m not really sure how to explain how I felt at this point… it’s difficult for me to express. No, my feelings weren’t misplaced guilt. No, I didn’t blame her for being sick. My God, how could I? It wasn’t her fault.
I am a doer and delegator by nature- I always have been. If I see something that needs to be done, I do it or have it done. I make things happen and I am good at it. I can be relentless when I want something. Some people would call that pig-headedness; I call it persistence.
In this case, I was powerless. She was being ripped away from me and there was nothing… absolutely nothing… I could do to stop it.
The helplessness was maddening for me.
Sure, I’d faced the death of a loved one before but this time was different. I’d been close to my great-grandfather, but when he died I was only ten; now I was fifteen and much more aware of- and struggling with- my own mortality. Much more aware that life isn’t easy nor is it fair. I was dealing with not only the loss of my beloved grandmother but a heaping, extra-bitter dose of reality as well.
It was so hard for me to see her sick. As a result, I stayed away except for the times I had to visit. In my mind, she was still the sophisticated woman who inspired men to drool and turned women green. But the reality was far different from the image in my mind’s eye. Here was this vibrant, beautiful woman who was so many things to so many people, basically wasted away to nothing but a sick, deathly pale, ravaged shell of the woman she once was. It was heartbreaking to witness.
She’d always tried so hard to be dignified, sophisticated; but seeing her like that- barely recognizable- I knew inside that if she were able to protest, she wouldn’t want anyone to see her that way.
Just before Christmas, they called us to come again and this time it was different. Somehow, I knew in my heart that this really was “it.” She’d already gone to sleep when each of us arrived. To this day, I remember the exact way the room felt when I came in- the way it smelled. Her labored, intermittent breaths, followed by utter silence.
I wasn’t sure what to say so I just told her that I loved her. There really was nothing more to say, I guess. I have no idea if she did, of course, but I’d like to think she heard me.
Then they quickly whisked us kids out of the room and sent us out on the deck to sing Christmas songs. At some point a bit later, someone came up to tell us that she’d passed on.
She had looked Death in the face and, in her typically gracious way, accepted that he’d won.
I remember feeling guilty over the relief I felt. I wasn’t relieved she was gone; I was relieved she was no longer suffering. There was no more pain. No more indignities. As much as I wanted her to stay, death was a bittersweet blessing.
Grandma and I had a theological discussion once and she asked me if I believed in heaven and hell. I told her I absolutely did believe in heaven and hell. She asked if I believed in souls and spirits and ghosts and I told her I absolutely did. Then she told me that if there really was life after death and there was any way possible for her to come back and let me know that she was okay that she would.
I have lived in this world long enough to learn that I have still a lot to learn. There are things that are beyond my comprehension- things that are beyond any our understanding on a personal, religious, or scientific level. But I do know what I’ve seen and heard. I’ve learned to trust my senses and my gut feelings.
Those nights that I wake up and smell that unmistakable scent that could only belong to her, I know she’s here with me. Those times when it’s perfectly still in my house and a sudden rush of cold wind blows through the house for no apparent reason- I know it’s her.
I know, I know, I’m crazy, right? It’s okay, you don’t have to believe me. Most people have a hard time accepting what they can’t explain.
After she died, I can’t tell you how many times I picked up the phone and dialed her number, only to have my stomach drop to my toes as I remembered that I couldn’t call her. There are few days that go by that I don’t miss her or think of her in one way or another.
Now, was she perfect? Oh, God, no. Was she well-behaved? Hell no. If I am honest with myself about this, I really think don’t think she wanted to be perfect or well-behaved. I think she simply was who she was, and that was that. Take her or leave her but, try as you might, you sure as hell weren’t going to change her. She didn’t try to fit in anywhere, she made people fit her. Only you didn’t realize you were doing it at the time. She was truly one of the most unique and amazing people I’ve ever known.
Personally, I don’t think she was ever meant to stay among us mere mortals. I think she was always meant for somewhere better than here.
