I’m not going to get into the details, but you should know that she almost died right there in Anchorage. And when she didn’t, when they flew her home to Hackensack, NJ, we all knew that this was going to be a long journey…all the way to the end.

It’s been almost a year since Alaska. I’m sitting next to Nana who is resting in a hospital bed after a nasty fall. Whenever she’s admitted (there have been multiple trips recently) they remove her over-the-ear hearing aids for safety and replace them with walkman headphones attached to a tiny microphone so she can sort of hear us speak directly into her ears. I tell my mom that she looks like Anne Hathaway on the cover of The Princess Diaries DVD case.

Nana is taking a lot of pain medication, so each word takes time and effort, but her mind is sharp.

This is the last conversation I had with her.

Caroline: Hi, it’s me Caroline. I’m so happy to see you.

Nana: Caroline. God bless you.

Caroline: I see you. How are you feeling?

Nana: Not great.

Caroline: But no pain?

Nana: I like your glasses.

Caroline: Thank you. I like them too.

Nana: See that corner? Where the pipe meets the wall? There was a kitten sleeping there when I first got here. It was alive. And now it’s dead.

Caroline: What kind of cat is it?

Nana: You have a good one.

Caroline: Harvey?

Nana: Harvey.

I turn to hide my tears in a hug with my mom who is standing behind me. She’s wearing a pink sweater that reminds me of when I was little and would compare her soft skin to rose petals because I knew she liked to hear it.

On the train home, I write in my “journal”.

I realized, sitting next to her today with her deep wounds and bruised face, that I did really love her. Very much so. This idea of love that I’ve been trying to define…this feeling that I thought must be the epitome of all feelings.

I realize now that it’s much simpler than that. Somehow, after everything, I just know that she loved me. And I accept her love back, however she throws it. Every life is a love story.

Today, when I saw her for the last time, I thought about the privilege of being so close to death in a safe environment. The privilege of knowing that something is going to be the last time as it happens for the last time.

She was so adamant about how her grandchildren addressed her. I remember asking my mom why we had a “Nana” when other kids had a grandma. She was a person who believed that 15 minutes early was considered on time. Maybe you know someone like that…maybe you love them.

I cry and think about how my Nana will never see the sky again, with the clouds and the wind in the trees. She loved to swim in this creek off the Delaware river.

We later found out that the kitten she was seeing on the ceiling of her hospital room was a calico cat.

—

I’m going to play around with how I define “interviews” but I have a few interviews lined up that will feel more traditional and less…well, like the one above. Going forward, my hope is to have a vast collection of stories and facts from all of our lives.

See you back here, soon :)

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
 
Maggie Smith, “Good Bones” from Good Bones: Poems (Copyright © 2017 by Maggie Smith)

I decided that I would collect and write interviews of my family and friends, and then try to expand the practice across everyone I know: work colleagues, bartenders, the guy who runs the movie theater at the bottom of the hill in town, etc.

This was almost a year ago, now.

Earlier this year, I was called home to say goodbye to my Nana. As I tripped around my apartment throwing random items into an overnight bag, I became overwhelmed with a deep itch to write. I grabbed an old notebook, a pen off my desk, and raced over to the train station to head down the Hudson River. Two hours til Penn Station.

I sat in a window seat in the middle of the train car. With only a few other folks in the seats nearby, I cracked open a beer and took out the notebook.

Page 1 was a log of what Noah ate on March 15th, 2022.

Page 2 just had the word “storytelling”.

I started on Page 3.

I bought green pens knowing the ink would be black. I’ve never been without a grandmother before. Both of my parents’ mothers have been alive my whole life. There’s something about women dying that feels different. Like they were supposed to be here forever. And that would be normal. Maybe we realize in the moment that they are going to leave us, that we’re going to have to find love from somewhere else.

It’s been a long time since I wrote anything down. My handwriting is sloppy. If I were investigated for any reason, and they needed writing samples to compare to the scene of the crime, mine would be wildly insufficient.

The things you take with you when you die:

• Your memories

• How it feels to be you

• Your swimming skills

• Your laugh

• The way snow melts in your hair

• Your faith

• The will to live

She wanted to be different, and she was. What did she mean to me? She defined a life that I tried so hard to move away from. And in many ways I was determined to not take her influence with me.

In the end, it all comes with you.

The first interview of this newsletter will be my last conversation with my Nana.

See you back here, soon.

–

But what are my words?
Storm-twisted forests
facing north,
craggy rocks
against day’s
harrowing
fire.

Olav H. Hauge, from “Singing again,” Selected Poems (White Pine Press, 1990)

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