alone my warm numb shell

the last few days have been a blur. I feel as I am here, but my mind is in ten other directions. trying to understand things that I have no answers too.

I will try to recall the last week, as well as I can.

Thursday or Friday night I got a call that my grandmother was on her last life. she was like a cat, always strong and thriving, even as her body was failing, and her mind lingering away. Saturday morning it was a gray day. I packed Ezra in the car, and drove the route to my parents house. I remember the gray I felt. Gray has a taste to me, sometimes sweet, sometimes sour. It's like a clam middle ground, where black and white has left off. I remember tiny snowflakes hitting the car window as a heather nova song played on the radio. When I got there, my parents house was like a locked fortress. I jumble with the key to the back door. No luck, I knocked, No answer. I went to start the car again so Ezra wouldn't awake from his nap, or get to cold. Then an answer to the door. The house was messy, not a strange sight to see, but a bit odd because every time I come over now they clean, put away all the harmful non baby items away, but not today.
My father lead us out to my Hamlet's grave. He passed away on Monday of this week. I shed a tear looked at the the scrawler of the back-ground, noticed the chicken wire for the tomato's to be grown next year, and watch one single hawk fly by. A cold wind went through me. I carried Ezra back in, and smelled the heat.
A drive through Hamilton would come next. I saw my families' old store front, with our last name in stone at the very top. the building was ugly, re-painted, broken in, poor, beaten, like many of the homes on that side of town. the only thing that was beautiful was our name, etched in sand. like a proud mark of an immigrants dream. Wagner 1912, almost 100 years of history. I took a note to come back with my digital camera. My father said to visit the church next store, st. joseph. I have a mental note, that when things are a bit more settled to take a date with myself to take pictures.

off to breakfast, my father spoke a bit about his hidden life, we saw his cousin Hilda working at the Perkins, he couldn't place her face. but I could place the name in the stories my grandmother would tell me. My muffin was half-baked, and Ezra scattered tiny pieces of food all over the floor.

Because we were there, and I didn't want to make the commute back from his house to her, I said can we see her now?

so we went, she was moved back into her 'room' 127

I walked in unprepared to what I might face, even though I thought previously what the interaction would be like. I enter into the room, there she laid. a shell of a body of a woman i once knew so well. her skin was like leather, and was a strange color of plum gray. she was speaking in tongues, half religious speak, half a language of it's own, a few words here and there.
I took her hand, stood and looked at her, and said what I had to say. What was spoken is between she and I, and it is not for anyone else in the world.
I stared at her eyes maybe for a few minutes but it felt like years. they were the most beautiful color blue that I have ever seen. I can't quite describe what I saw in them, but her eyes, her eyes, her eyes.
She ask me to take her away, she used my first correct name, and didn't confuse me with anyone else. this time she didn't say take me home, or take me away from there. she asked me to take her away, and let her go. I had one of those out of body experiences, where I wasn't really myself, but I was. Like the words were coming out, but I wasn't really speaking. I said "I am not the person who can do that or decided that, you ask to ask him/it that" She clutch my hand and then let go, giving me permission to leave. which at this time (and i am trying to describe this as best as possible, but i really don't have the words) tears were spilling from my eyes.
on my way out of the door to my car, someone asked me if i was alright. but i went to my car to grab my rosary. a rosary to me has a lot of religious significance and not just the traditional. and this entry could get a lot rambling if i even tough on my thoughts on religion/and my grandmothers role in my development. some of the shit is pretty freaky.

but i grab the rosary (black), went back in the room where she was upright coughing and gagging and struggling to breath. which i just couldn't watch, it was horrible, and placed it in her hands, kissed her head and said i love you.

knowing full and well that would be the last time i would ever see her alive.

the next day she died. what words that were exchanged just her and I, the fact that she was asking to leave this earth, and I had this strange out of body experience..confirms that there is something more but i just don't know what.

i been struggling with the concept of death, how painful but at the sometimes beautiful (like a release for someones who is so much pain) and wondering a lot about it, and the conversation we had, and that she happened to die the very next day, and...

before i got the call i broke a coffee pot, and a baking dish, both made out of glass, both broke in a 100 peices and weridly i had shoes on, right after i broke the baking dish the phone rang, and i knew she was dead, even though i already knew at 2pm she was close to it...strange...

i shared a lot with her, she was strong, stubborn, odd, strangely religous, and i had the upmost respect for her, i feel like another peice of me has gone missing...

sorry to folks that had to see me saturday night i was not much fun, and every thing was making me feel uncomftorable, because i just wanst there...

the next day around 2pm i found my self hysterically crying. at 2:30 she was dead.