death, in its absence, regret

28th May

I was told this morning that yi por has died.

She was like my third grandma, someone who had raised me until I was about 3.
I was young, but I still have vivid memories of my time with her.

I remember the three Dalmatians in her backyard, how fascinating their novelty spots were, how they towered over me with their eager dog tongues.
I remember the peephole in her gate, where I could see the pink noses of her dogs nosing impatiently.

Everything about her house is familiar, like my brain is remembering things it has forgotten. It is the dark dusty corridors of my youth, one of the last testimonies to my age of innocence.

I feel so guilty about her death, because I�m not feeling the pain as acutely as with my grandpa, because I�m not grieving as badly, because I lost contact with her, because only this year did I visit her again and she was so happy to see me and couldn�t stop smiling and I was told she had been looking forward to it for weeks and wouldn�t stop mentioning how excited she was to see me.

It is a terrible life to be a grandma. To give and give and give, to watch your beloved grandsons and grand daughters grow and laugh and live, and then to watch them leave and leave and leave and forget. And in the end, all you are left with is an empty house with cold walls, and the remainders of yourself; rheumy hands and a tired body with only the hollow echoes of laughing memories to keep you company.

Why couldn�t I make her life happier, brighter, alleviated the pain and suffering? Even by a little? When all that was required of me was so little, how difficult is it really to haul my ungrateful selfish ass over when I can make her smile, make her day , make her excited and hopeful and young again? Why didn�t I?

I owe her so much, she suffered so much, and it is too late. She doesn�t exist anymore, and I can never make it up to her, in this only world there is.

Why is it human nature to never learn? To err, to learn, but only to forget again? Those around me are leaving, leaving, leaving me, and I promise change, but I forget, forget, forget like the remorseless, treacherous, sinful human being I am, and all I am left with is regret � heavy, sinking unbearable burden of Atlas that weighs on my soul, mind and conscience, crushing me with its force, to be borne until the end of my own existence.

I have too much sorrow, and no more tears left to cry. Each death becomes a permanent testimony to the past, a guardian to my sacred childhood. They must be left behind, no longer a part of my future, and I must plod along the daunting path alone, with each step I take bringing me further and further away from them.

2011-06-27
8:17 p.m.
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