Dear Granma,
I went into the archives to find you. I am Alice spelunking down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.
Granma! Did you know I have a few things wrong in the book I am writing, a book as much about history as it is about my love for you, and how one pretends to be finite and the other knows it is infinite and sometimes they are confused for each other, but never when I close my eyes or bow my head in prayer?
I am making a list of the little edits I have to make: The year I sent you that text message. The date I wrote your name in my diary as you moved from not quite gone to no longer alive.
There are things I can put into words now--the injustice of sitting third pew from the front, your first grandchild, your eldest grandbaby--that I couldn’t even feel then.
There are things I chose to forget, amnesia a sharp and bitter strategy for self-preservation. On February 1, 2020, I wrote, “I am convinced racism killed my grandmother.” I still am But I forgot I wrote this. Tomorrow, I will forget again. The truth is too acidic, so I witness and release, witness and release.
There are things I have since learned. You loved Lou Rawls, whose voice makes me want to do nasty things. You were nothing if not a woman of faith with faith in the profane.
I fall into the past and I am touching baubles and knick-knacks, looking for the cake that makes this memory big or a drink to make the grief small. Small enough to see my way around, over, under.
I wrote this on October 8, 2019:
No one expects grandmothers to live forever.
and
My child is four months old. The last words my grandmother said to them were over text:
and
How long can a body stay suspended between two worlds before succumbing to one or the other?
On July 7, 2026, I add:
When does a haunting begin and end?
I don't care. Haunt me forever, Granmaa. Never leave.