10/04/2009 16:11
Loss
I'm writing this from my grandparents' dining room table in their house in Los Angeles waiting for the sun to come up so I can go outside and do something physical, maybe a run, maybe just a walk. I've just driven my sister back to LAX to catch an early flight back to New York. I'll head back to London tomorrow around 5:30 pm, getting in at noon on Tuesday.
My grandmother died. It's still surreal. Of all my grandparents, I was closest to my Bubbie Gene ("Bubbie" being Yiddish from grandmother). She was an amazing woman - in the fifties, she would be in the thick of "Ban the Bomb" marches with a stroller and three toddlers in tow. She has been a huge influence on me and I will miss her terribly.
It's really strange being in this house without her. I keep expecting to see her turn the corner, ready to drink a cup of strong, black coffee with me before heading out to face the day. She was my last grandparent and it truly feels like an era has ended.
One good thing that has come out of this situation is that my family, generally known as the epitome of dysfunctionality, is starting to reconcile. For the first time in twenty years, my dad, his three other siblings and all the grandkids, all eleven of us, were in the same place at the same time. Historically, someone has always not been speaking to someone else, so you could never, ever see everyone all at once. It was a beautiful moment to have us all together for Friday night dinner and I know my grandmother would have loved to see that more than anything in the world.
I know I haven't really started to process this loss. Yesterday, I went to the beach with my dad and my sister. The beach is where I always feel calm, centered, able to focus. Something about moving water and waves brings me back to a place where I am able to let go.
It's really the end of an era. My grandmother was the lynchpin holding together the giant tapestry that is our family. She was my source of information about all my first cousins and everyone else. It's a massive family and I don't think I've even met all of my second cousins, let alone further out. Notwithstanding all the California cousins I haven't seen since I was a small child, there are around 150 of us in Mexico City who I haven't seen since I was a baby. I don't know who in California is going to take on the mantle of keeping the family informed and, inasmuch as possible, intact. I think we're all going to have to.
In many ways, this has been such a difficult, painful year. There has been such loss and strife and pain and I know there have been good times as well, but when I think back on 2009 thus far, it is with such mixed emotions.
I'd like to go back to the beach before I go back to London. I think it would do me some good.