A Quarter Cup of Granny

I didn't come back from Texas with a quarter cup of Granny. The idea of security at the airport giving me shit about Granny in my carry on luggage was entirely too much to bear, and I didn't want to put them in the suitcase I checked. For the moment, her remains remain in Houston. She may be scattered in the hills surrounding Lake Tahoe at the beginning of August.

Ever since she moved in with my parents back around Thanksgiving. Granny slept in my room. I wasn't all that fired up about sleeping in my bed. When she moved back home from the skilled nursing facility, they put a hospital bed into the room, and that's the bed Granny was in the night she died. It's not like she died in my bed, but she spent a hell of a lot of time in it as she lay dying.

Sleeping in Granny's bed that had been my bed turned out to be rather peaceful. My psychiatrist thinks I might as well have crawled into the coffin with her, and even if that's true, I still found it comforting. Besides, she didn't have a coffin. Right now she's 0n a sideboard by the kitchen table in a white cardboard box suitable for Fed Exing.

I don't quite know how I think or feel about Granny dying. Nobody I liked ever died before. My grandparents on my dad's side are dead, but I hated my grandfather and my meemee was another East Texas Pitbull in Pink. One thing is for sure, though, there are not many people in your life who always think you're cute and who are proud of you even when you think you suck. Granny the Ho was one of mine.

Now that Velvet is off in the wilderness of Wyoming, hiking and fly fishing his was to college credits in Environmental Biology or something like that, it's pretty quiet. He spent some time with Buzz Kill's side of the family in California who are all competitive, aggressive, type A individuals which was actually very productive because now he has a clear direction for college. He's going to be some kind of engineer. He can still be a Cult Leader if he wants to, but everyone has to have a day job. He's excited and enthusiastic about the college search, mentioning names of far away places like Arizona and Boulder. Both great places, but awfully far.

Last week Velvet called from Wyoming the night before the kids all handed over their cells and hiked off into the Rockies. He went into the bathroom to call so the guys he was playing poker with wouldn't see him call his mom. I told him to remember every time he looked up at the moon that his mama was looking at the same moon. He said, "Yeah. And probably throwing things off the terrace."

He's right about that. Tossing salt, flowers and candle stubs off the terrace during different phases of the moon is my most favorite way to focus my energy. When I finally get Granny's ashes up here in a unique and meaningful container, I'll be able to hang onto the little bit of her that lives on in me in a concrete way. Philosophy, theology and abstract ponderings are entirely too nebulous to be any help sometimes. Sometimes you need to be able to hold something in your hand, feel it on your skin and know it's real. Right now, I've got two rag dolls she made and the Love Beads she wore when she lived in Laguna Beach back in the Sixties.