Mimi Memorial

Some thoughts about my grandmother

Ugh. Grandmother.

It just tastes wrong in my mouth

she was Mimi

a nickname given to her

by her first and only granddaughter

Our Mimi

A slender, practical woman

elegant well into her golden years

but not without the trappings

of her rugged mountain upbringing

It showed up in little ways

but to me the most telling was in her language,

certain unsavory words that she would let slip:

a Damn

or an asshole

and even the rare albino bitch

she always followed these utterances with the footnote:

grandmothers don’t talk that way

but mine did

and that was cool as hell

For four years, while I was in college

she opened up her home to me

with homemade Sunday dinners

at the time elders typically have it: 4 pm. 

We would sit and talk

she would listen to my flights of fancy

the fevers of collegiate teachings

And I would listen to her stories

of a life long lived,

and about the friends she was losing

year by year

It was a strange confluence

myself at the sunrise of my adulthood

and her at the sunset of her own

The summer before my senior year

I got sick, head-sick

and Mimi was the one that drove me to the hospital

and after that hell

when the world was crumbling around me

she gave me a place to stay and heal

And in reflecting on all this

I realized that

She had a heart so big and so full

that the primary artery to it

ruptured twice

So thank you Mimi

for all the gifts of that big ol’ heart of yours

You are sorely. sorely missed

(I read this at her memorial today. It was lovely)

Today's Haiku

Waves of remembrance
crash on family and friends
flotsam and jetsam

Today's Workout
(Leaped a series of emotional hurdles)

Today's Drawing
(Based on the word Boycott from Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day)
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