“Was she a smoker?”
This is always the first question that I get asked when I tell someone that years ago, when my life seemed to be so spread out in front of me that I had no concept of how precious time is, my grandmother died of lung cancer. At first, the questions made me so angry that I could practically feel the emotion bubbling up, but now, I’m so used to them that the anger is reduced to a dull roar. How dare they, I question. As if somehow she would deserve cancer if she had been. As if she had done something in order to have death flirt at her bedside for so long.
When I think of my grandmother, a thousand different smells come to mind: honeydew when she danced around in her closet, showing me all the pretty dresses she owned; cookies when she fluttered around the kitchen; mint in the early morning when she would watch the wind playing at her wind chimes; rosemary when she would sing me to sleep.
But most importantly, she smelled like roses. Always roses. Roses when she smiled, roses when she laughed, roses when she lifted her hand to tuck hair behind her ear. Roses when she walked in her garden, roses when she did the laundry, roses when she hugged me, roses when she lay dying in a hospital bed.
The last time I smelled my grandmother, I think I was ten. I hadn’t known at the time that that was going to be the last chance I had to smell her, for if I had, I may have taken deeper breaths.
Now, I’m nearly twenty one years old and I can’t remember what direction her hair curled in or what her voice sounded like, but I remember the honeydew, and the lilies, and the cookies, and the mint. The roses. When I was eighteen and reckless, I bagged all the money I had, drove to a tattoo parlor, and slapped three roses on my leg. They remind me of her, when I start to forget how strong she was. When I need something to anchor me down.
Let me be the first to tell you, My grandmother was not a smoker, but cancer didn’t care. Cancer didn’t know if her breath smelled like tobacco or mint. Cancer didn’t know how black her lungs were. Cancer didn’t know that she had four grandchildren and a son who still needed her. Cancer didn’t care that she was a whole person with ambitions and hobbies and things that she loved. Cancer doesn’t work that way. It takes who it wants. My grandmother’s is just another name on a growing list.
My grandmother was not a smoker, but she did love to sew. I think it made her feel happy to be able to turn flat fabric into wonderful gowns in a single day. To sew buttons on with her eyes screwed shut and tailor a seam so that it fit snug against your ribcage. Wearing her dresses always felt like a hug.
When I was five, I liked to think that the warmth that my body supplied the fabric was a little left over from her hands. Like she was patting me on the back and humming a lullaby in my ear. My father says that he doesn’t understand why she worked so hard to make me silly dresses, why she insisted on spending hours upon hours patching fabric together. I don’t think he knew how magical his mother was. How everything she touched turned to love.
My grandmother was not a smoker but she liked to watch the sunlight spilling across the grass in the morning. I only have a few memories of her, but one of the most important ones is the only time we ever drove all the way to Texas to see her. When my parents knew the end was near. When everyone refused to explain what has happening. When I was too young to want to listen. I woke that morning much earlier than I usually did, I liked to sleep in more than anyone else except my brother.
Somehow, though, I had this feeling that I should be awake, so there I was. I kicked off the heavy quilt and padded down the hallway, fingers grazing the wooden walls. I made sure to be quiet, I didn’t want anyone to know I was there. I saw her when I rounded the corner, standing by the window. She had her nightgown on and her head was wrapped up in a scarf, hiding the hair loss. She never wore a scarf around me. I think she didn’t want me to see that she didn’t have any hair. I thought the scarf was beautiful. She was always beautiful.
My grandmother was not a smoker but she had the most beautiful handwriting. It would dance across the page, perfectly straight and orderly, like she had copied it from some sixteenth century manuscript. I still have some of the letters that she sent me, and on occasion, I will pull them from my jewelry box and trace the dots of her i’s and the curl of her h’s.
No one really knows this, I don’t tend to share things like this, but when I was young and the wounds of her death were still fresh, I would sit at my desk and copy her handwriting. People tell me all the time that my cursive is similar to hers, but what they don’t know is that I made it that way.
My grandmother was not a smoker, but she did like to collect music boxes. I think she liked to imagine that the tinkling sounds were the universe’s way of telling her that everything was going to be alright. That in the craziness and chaos that came with losing all of your hair and injecting your body with medicine that made you incredibly sick, the music boxes would always sound the same. Would always be beautiful even when you felt that you weren’t.
My grandmother was not a smoker, but she was a force of nature. When she would place her hand on the top of my head, it always felt like a soft breeze on sun-warmed skin. She was gentle, kind, loving. But sometimes, when the briefest spell of mischief would swell up in her chest, that gentle breeze twisting into a tornado. She would pinch my ear, grin like a young girl, and laugh with her head thrown back at the faces I made. She was one of those people who never seemed to age, who never seemed to be defeated by the various trials that her life presented to her. I remember sometimes watching her lips twist into a smile and hoping that one day I would be half the summer storm that she was.
My grandmother was not a smoker, but she was beautiful. Really beautiful. So beautiful, that the air seemed to vibrate with her intensity no matter where she went. Her every movement was like a choreographed dance and even in the end, when her voice crackled with exhaustion and the disease had taken away every memory she had of me. When she couldn’t remember who I was or why she mattered so much to me, she was still beautiful.
Sometimes, I wish that cancer knew who it has robbed from the world. If maybe, cancer would write me an apology. Would send me back in time and plop my grandmother in the front row of my graduation ceremony, or would write me letters in her fancy scrawl, or would sew me pretty dresses, would sing my lullabies, would sneak me cookies, would smell like roses. Always roses. But like I said before, cancer doesn’t care.
