potholes & pitstops: 2011

Friday, April 08, 2011

Still in nyc

I don't post to this blog very much anymore, mostly because who takes the time to visit someone's personal blog when there's Facebook and Twitter? But then again, it's not really for visitors so much as a sort of visual diary that I sporadicly update. I'm glad to be able to look back over the last 5 years of my life, especially the move and early times here in nyc.

My great grandmother Sonia kept diaries for most of her life and used to give me one every year for Christmas, or as she called it, Hanukkah. Ha ha. Anyway, it was always this cute little book with gold-edged pages and a clasp that popped opened when you pressed a button. It usually came with two tiny keys on a ring so you could lock up your secrets if you wanted.

I still have a few of those diaries that I was not very good at maintaining. My younger self was even less disciplined about making entries than I am now. There's something very touching about my short, perfunctory records of the day's activities. A typical day:

After school Miranda came over for dinner. We played cards then mom went to a meeting. I watched Three's Company and went to bed.

It snowed today. I went sledding with Miranda. We had spaghetti for dinner then I did my homework.

Every now and then there's an event that looms large in memory, and as recounted among the other entries makes my heart ache for my young self. I want to reach back through the years and give little Melissa a hug:

When I came home from school mom told me that Papa Boyle died. I went upstairs to say goodbye. I was very sad. I watched Mork & Mindy and went to bed.

I remember that my mom and grandmother tried to be upbeat about my grandfather passing. He was sick with cancer and bedridden for months. My mother and I lived in the farmhouse and he slept in a room down the hall from me. I found out many years later that he had tried to kill himself during his long illness. Somehow I slept through the event, but the rest of the family were all there and kept him alive.

Now his suffering had ended and these women urged me upstairs to say my goodbyes. How does a 10 year-old process the death of her grandfather? I remember summoning the courage to walk into his room alone and circle the bed. Everything was still. He was there, and not there. I didn't know what to do, so I looked and left. They kept the body there for at least 24 hours. Something about allowing the spirit to accept the death and move on in due time. For years, I was afraid of that room at the end of the hall. But the last time I lived in the farmhouse, briefly during a summer in high school, I actually slept in the room and came to feel a sense of harmony and peace with my departed grandfather. The room was light and bright and always felt still and quiet.

Dear Diary, thanks for listening. It's nice to know that Mork & Mindy were there for me no matter what happened. And also a family that didn't try to hide the reality of death, but instead celebrated the end of a terminal illness and the life a hard-working farmer, husband, father and grandfather.