it's only a change of time

I had a dream last night
I dreamt that I was swimming
and the stars up above
directionless and drifting
somewhere in the dark
were the sirens and the thunder
and around me as I swam
the drifters who’d gone under

time, love
time, love
time, love
it’s only a change of time

When I was ten years old, I slipped into the middle of the woods and begged God to let my Grandma live. The early spring snow was wet and slowly seeped into my battered second-hand boots as I pleaded, offering everything I could think of in exchange. But God was silent, and eventually my desperate words faltered. Cancer had been a part of my vocabulary for a year now, but it had just been a word. It was the reason Grandma was tired. The reason she had to go home early. The reason we couldn't visit as often. The reason we couldn't see her if we had a cold. It had not occurred to me that my Grandma was going to die, but now surrounded by the dripping trees and divine silence, it was suddenly, painfully clear. I stayed there until the sun began to set, alone, snow soaking into my jeans, my grief mixing with the sharp taste of pine.

I had a dream last night
and rusting far below me
battered hulls and broken hardships
leviathan and lonely
I was thirsty so I drank
and though it was salt water
there was something ‘bout the way
it tasted so familiar

time, love
time, love
time, love
it’s only a change of time

I knew it when my parents sat us all at our worn dining room table in the early morning. I knew it when my mother stared silently at the floor. I knew it when my father stood, calmly grave. I let three tears fall onto the table, but that was all.

the black clouds I’m hanging
this anchor I’m dragging
the sails of memory rip open in silence
we cut through the lowlands
all hands through the saltlands
the white caps of memory
confusing and violent

We stood beside the open grave, just family. A man was speaking, a Bible in hand, but I couldn't stop staring at the coffin, sacred and elegant. I just couldn't picture her inside. That was not her. She was laughter and the crumbly sweetness of pound cake and the soft clucking of chickens as she gently placed a warm, freshly laid egg in my small hand. I fidgeted, stared at the sky, watched the cars drive by. When it was finally over, I raced my cousins back to the car. I didn't care if I won, I just wanted to get away from the deafening silence of that wooden box. I put my hand through the open window of my Grandpa's car to unlock the door, only to start when he yelled out sharply for me to stop. He didn't want the car alarm to go off, but he had never yelled at me like that before. I sat silently as we drove from the cemetery to the church and tried to make sense of the tumultuous fear playing round in my head.  

The organ played mournful tunes for what felt like hours before the service even started. All around me were the sounds of people crying. My family. People I barely recognized. People I didn't know at all. I clenched my fists so tightly that my nails bit into my palms. Throughout the entire service I sat that way, stubbornly stoic, refusing to cry.

time, love
time, love
time, love
it’s only a change of
time, love
time, love
time, love
it’s only a change of time

At the reception, we children ran like wild things around the small room. It was a maze of legs adorned in sleek pleated slacks, leather dress shoes, tan colored pantyhose, and sensible heels. We yelled and laughed manically and stole an entire bowl of sugar cubes for my cousin's horse, but no one said a word. We were the grandchildren of the deceased, untouchable.

Afterwards, it was easiest to pretend she had never existed. The memory of life with her was more bitter than sweet. It was too hard to remember her, always so full of love. It was too hard to remember my mother laughing, to remember her face lit up with joy. It was too hard to remember that my Grandpa hadn't always been silent and stooped with grief, that my mother hadn't always been raging with hate.

But she haunts me still. Sometimes she is well, laughing, warm with life. Sometimes she is skeletal and frail with sunken eyes and cheeks. Her ghost held my hand through the deepest valleys of depression, sometimes more as an anchor than a guide. She is ever present, and I do not know which one of us won't let go. 

Sometimes I get lost imagining how things could have been different if she had lived. It's a dangerous road that leads further and further into nowhere. So I have to remind myself over and over again that this is what is true:

I only had her for a short time, but in that time I never doubted that she loved me. 

And I will see her again. I believe that with all my heart.

it’s only a change of

time, love
time, love
time, love

it’s only a change of
time, love
time, love
time, love
it’s only a change of time

To Millie, my Grandma, with love.

Song lyrics from "Change of Time" by Josh Ritter