All The Things Missing
In memoriam
My first introduction to true grief was the passing of my paternal grandmother Mildred Alexander. I found that my emotions felt separate from me and absolutely uncontrollable. The day she died my father came to pick me up from work. When the front office came to tell me he was there, I knew it could be for no good reason. About halfway down the hall my heart rate picked up because I had an idea. I thought what could be so serious that he would have to come in person to tell me. When he turned around to look at me and said, “Your granny passed away this morning,” I broke.
It was not in my immediate reality to think that my grandmother was going to die one day. She was such a force of nature it seemed like she would defy even death to continue on in life. I remember when I first received the news that she was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer, I was living in Savannah Georgia with my roommates. That morning I woke up with a troubling amount of anxiety and unease but I couldn’t place it. I didn’t immediately know what was wrong. It was so strong that when I exited my room and greeted my friend in the kitchen, that was the first thing I said to her, “I woke up with anxiety and I can’t place it.” After having a bout of passing out spells in high school I learned early to listen to my body, especially my chest and gut. I question frequently if I am clairvoyant, if you believe in that sort of thing. That day was one of those “feelings” I got. Later that same day I was taking a walk in Forsyth Park by myself because the anxiety had still not left me when my father called me. He said he didn’t have good news and that Granny was jaundiced in the eyes and was taken to the hospital where she was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer. That was three years ago in 2022. After I got off the phone with my dad I turned around and called my grandmother. She told me not to worry that God had gotten her through this before, that she didn’t worry the first time so I shouldn’t either. The thing is, I was three years old when she was diagnosed with Breast cancer. I've never known worry like this. When I got back to my apartment I told my friend that I found out what the anxiety was that morning.
When her health started declining she moved in with us. I watched my mother and father become her primary care taker. She watched me struggle to figure out what I wanted to do with my life after I had moved back home. She watched me pack my bags and move to Spain, with a little bit of protest. I only recall my grandmother getting on a plane once and that was to see my brother graduate. She got better and moved back to her house. I moved back home and showed her all the pictures I took while living in Spain. I called her on the phone two weeks before she passed away and she told me that she wasn’t going anywhere. And then she was gone.
The memories I developed over the years with my grandmother come as they may and bring with them the loss of a very dear and deep love. When I drive by the Ripley’s Believe or Not museum it’s not the wax statues I remember now but the 4th of July firework show where I had to pee behind a car while my grandmother stood watch because there were no bathrooms and I really had to go. The roundabout turn on the way home has nothing to do with my commute and everything to do with my grandmother misunderstanding my pointed finger and driving in a full circle while we laughed at the ridiculousness of the loop. Grief is spotty and unpredictable and when I think about it for too long I question how many times I can go through this feeling again. I found myself trying to hold back tears in Staples because I passed the same pocket calendars my grandmother used to give me because she knew I would like the flowers. A birdwatching TikTok came up on my For You page and a Chickadee bird flew into frame and I started crying uncontrollably. My grandmother used to call me her little Chickadee/Tweety Dee and would sign all of her cards to me as such. The reason I began this piece was because it occurred to me I would never be able to have my grandmother’s Banana Pudding anymore. I started to realize all of the things I would begin to miss. I wish I could have said all of this at the homegoing but I was inconsolable. The mere sight of the photo we picked of her for the funeral sent me down. When my 25th birthday passed it ended in grief because I was waiting for her to call me like she did every year. Thanksgiving passed and her photo watched over us in the living room. Even now, it has been a year since her passing and I’m just now finding the strength to finish this. I think in those moments the only thing that comforted me was the Reverend of her church saying we would see her again. I believed him the minute it left his mouth and I remembered how my breath stilled at that realization. But it still does nothing to quell the absences.
When I think of the Alexander Legacy she is who I see in the hierarchy of scale.
The day she died, we went to her house. She was there in her room thin and frail tucked away. How can a house I’ve known since I was 2 years old lose all of its light in a single hour? She was the life of that room and when she passed the air went with her. We stayed there till the funeral home came. We encircled her and prayed over her body at the foot of her bed. The same bed I used to kneel before to pray at bedtime. My father was the first to step outside the house when they wheeled her out. And although his back was turned to us I knew he was crying. It was then that I realized he lost his mother. She was my grandmother, but that was his mother. As that thought laid bare before me my mother and I hugged him tightly as we watched her be put into the back of the Hearse. I thought about how we must look to our neighbors. I thought about how one day it’d be my own mother. I thought about how much I missed my older brother. For the first few years of my life we lived in her house, I remember thinking she was so tall. We went through her house, her jewelry, her possessions, her photos and what was once hers became ours. I was unsure how much to take but my mother insisted I grab more. I watched her mourn for her grandmother, as she expressed to me how she didn’t have much to remember her by. So I grabbed what I could.
When I think of the color of love it is the brown wooden walls of my grandmother’s house.
The day of the funeral, I thought I was fine until I was handed the program. The picture we had picked for her was there on the front and she looked so beautiful in green. Unlike the Baptist church I grew up in, Sunset is smaller and where I usually found that difference off putting, that day it brought me comfort. There’s not much information on the “stepping” that pallbearers do, but I would wager most Black people know what I’m talking about. At my grandmother’s funeral the church choir sang, “I Shall Wear a Crown” while the pallbearers in an honorable show of demonstration slowly and methodically walked down the aisle with a crown lifted above their heads. They placed it on her coffin with such tenderness and care. The choir also sang “Total Praise” and the part of the song where they sing “amen” in the three part harmony broke my heart open. It had been a long time since I had listened to Gospel music and it’s one of the only things that tethers me to my grandmother now.
There were so many people there for her that day. It was there that I understood my purpose. Seeing all the people she impacted and showed up to honor her in death as well as life. All of the lives she touched, all of the love she exuded. I understood how I too wanted to live and die. I miss my grandmother so much. But her legacy of love lives on through me. I can feel it in every tear I shed. It stirs my heart and runneth over. My cup runneth over.