Julia

Path

Sometimes I think, that people's spirits...or lives, travel
on these paths. And along the way, our spirits trail beside
each other...if even for a day...a second..or a lifetime.
Entities bumping into themselves and intertwining. I have
known so many people in my life. Most of them gone now.
Trailed off into another direction...whether in death or
life. Friends, family, lovers.... I'm always sad to see two
paths split away from each other. My grandparents came here
to America from Iceland to visit for 6 weeks. 6 whole long
tedious, annoying, impatient weeks. They came here (after
having said the past three times they came to visit that it
was the last time, this time, my sister calls their "Last
America Tour")...this time, to see my son whom was born
this last February. We were all surprised they even made it
out alive. My grandmother has gotten so old, and ill in
health. Not to mention how expensive it is to fly from home
to here. Every day, I either came to visit them at my dad's
house where they were staying, or I felt guilty for not
going to see them. (Thats the way it worked around them).
When my sister and I visit them, it is like a state affair.
Their strange, emotional and mentally frustrating ways,
each time pushing us to the point of exhaustion and anger.
Constant critasism, constant aggervation, in the middle of
wet old people kisses and forced hugs. Yes. This is the way
it is when my grandparents visit. However, the silent
constant reminder hangs over the living room, in which we
all sit; Drinking our diet pepsi's, staring at the TV, and
listening to my grandmother coo over an exhausted and
annoyed Andrew. The reminder that our paths are about to
change forever. That within an hour, my sister and I will
pack up and walk away from a lifetime of hugs and soft-
lotioned hands that gently stroke over my hair. I was in a
constant state of numbness the entire time I was there. My
sister was in a bad mood, so her snide remarks and
unwelcome advice about Andrew was pissing me off. I chose
to shut it off. I shut it off until I saw the look of dread
in my sister's eyes when it became time for us to leave.
She looked at me as if to say "You go first."
I awkwardly kissed my grandmother...I didn't know what else
to do? How do you say goodbye to someone whom you will
never see again...and you know it?
My grandmother swooned over Andrew in his car seat, as he
absently fingered the plastic-crinkle wings of his bumble
bee rattle. Oblivious to his little path being carried away
from the wet eyes that peered over his head. His blue eyes
staring up at her in study.
Even then I didn't let go of my safety. I hugged my
grandmother again, she ran her hands across my sister's
face in sorrow. Her eyes welling, she says simply, causing
a million memories to crash down my numb little world, "You
are..my girls." Her broken english more poiniant than
anything I could have said. It was then my heart shuddered.
And I stood...between the fork in our road, the soft
memories of my grandparents warm in my heart....when they
lived in america-- and my sister and I playing happily in
the colorful kiddie pools my grandmother would buy us every
year. I must have been 3..or 4...running to her lap, laying
against her soft body as she rocked me. My Grandfather,
dancing with us in his arms, in the hot, sticky California
nights. His off-key mock opera voice improvising to the
music in his own private concert. Her looks of adoration
towards us, always apparent in ever picture, in every
moment we were in her sight. We WERE her girls....
Walking away, breaking the paths apart, as if it was some
unspoken stage of death. I looked up above to the balcony
as we walked to the car, my grandfather's half-wave and
tough hugs still in my heart. These are the moments...that
pull you from that numbness...and remind you to keep on
going.

-- J