Cinnamon Roll Queen
In some indigenous traditions, it is said that when a loved one dies, the way they let you know they've reached heaven is when the sky opens up and it rains.
Yesterday, as I sat on my deck in a swirl of emotions, a drop fell on my nose. My Gma had crossed over a few hours earlier, peacefully, but leaving a family raw and keening all the same.
I smiled up at the drops through my tears, "efficient, as ever, Gma" I thought, imagining her finally with my Gpa again, side-by-side, holding hands, eyes shining.
I'd spent most of the day packing for a trip. The swirl of the preparation suddenly falling away in that cool clarity that comes when you get a call like that.
No more worry about the cracked paint on my toenails.
No more frenetic busyness masked as productivity.
No more illusion that this dress vs that dress mattered one. damn. bit.
Just quiet.
My hands folding laundry.
My mind finally clear.
Someone had asked me jokingly the earlier, "Who are you?" And though I know I am my own woman, suddenly with that question, the her-ness in me is all I see, and is more dear to me than ever.
- The tendency to cook for 27 when only 6 will be around the table.
- The loud DIY gene, from long before it was cool.
- The eagle-eyed vision of what "help" looks like, and jumping in with it whether it's asked for or not (uh... oops.)
- The insistence on butter as a food group.
- The dogged assurance that I can handle anything that comes along (she drove herself to the hospital, in a stick-shift truck, when she was in labor with her first child)
- The sense of always being up for an adventure (she'd jump on a rollercoaster with you any day, at any age)
- The eager willingness to travel vast distances to be with the ones she loved, even for a moment, on an important day. (A 1-hour show, a 1-minute swim race, a 1-year-old's birthday.)
Then I sit and ponder the parts of her that are not as habitual in me, but that I admire the hell out of.
- The way she was a safe-harbor for ANYONE. Any of my friends who've road-tripped within 100 miles of Denver have been offered a warm bed, a homemade meal, and a pan of cinnamon rolls to-go from Gma Dee. It didn't matter that she didn't know them - they just had to be my friend. And dozens of them have taken her up on that, and still ask about her.
- She took a half-blind, totally deaf dog into her home that was apparently such a runaway that the previous owners didn't even want her. Gma took her in, taught her sign-language. The dog never ran away again.
- She KNEW what she wanted her legacy to be, and she worked tirelessly at it. It was the massive way she loved people by pouring her creativity out on them - baby towels, beaded ornaments, cinnamon rolls, embroidery.
And I remember that I can lean into those, too, because they are alive in me if I allow them to be.
After a few hours of shock, I hear that no services will happen for the next few weeks. And as I pause in my silence to ask if I should even be leaving right now, I feel her clutching my hand, and I hear her voice more clearly than I've ever heard anyone who has ever crossed to the other side:
"Go, honey. Go. Have fun. And dance for me."
So today, I go. In joy and tears. And I take her with me.
Because how could I not when there's so much of her in me?
(Dee Gustafson - pictured here with her bat, being celebrated for her many years of service at Coors Field. She loved the Rockies.)