Good Grief

My grandmother Marie Dorothy (McGovern) Gemmell died February 1, 2013 on her ninety-third birthday. During her lifetime she raised nine children who in turn gave her seventeen grandchildren. The great-grandchildren are multiplying as we speak (my sister Bethany and cousin Susan are both expecting). She never forgot a birthday. She sang when she did the dishes. She was the second of seven children and grew up in Philadelphia during the Great Depression. Never more than five feet tall, she was the tiniest of women her last few years.

Though my (first...ha!) marriage did not last, one of the happiest days of my life was my bridal shower. Grandmom gave me a set of sheets and her recipe for lemon sponge cake. In the card she wrote that my grandfather had proposed to her while they were on a Ferris wheel and that she had loved him very much. I have read that note dozens of times, written about love, with love, from a woman I loved. Love.

The eleventh grandchild, I did not become truly close to her until I got out of the military six years ago. I would drive from Lancaster to visit her every month or two for the three and a half years I was in college.    We would drink tea. Play Scrabble. Talk about books, school, politics, family gossip.

On keeping her house warm in the winter:
"I don't drink, I don't carouse. I'll have the thermostat up if I want."
On getting non-Hodgkins-lymphoma at eighty:
"I told the cancer it wasn't going to get me."
On learning that I hate doing the dishes if I am alone:
"You need to put a radio in the kitchen."

She had been put in hospice about ten days before she died. I took the bus from NYC to Philly to say goodbye at the end of January. I held her hand and told her that I loved her. I tried to keep her from seeing my tears.

The night of her viewing my brother and I went to the airport to pick up my sisters who were flying into Philly  on red-eyes from North Carolina and Chicago. While driving back to the hotel my mother had booked, my dad's brother Darren called at 2 am. He was upset and trying to reach my dad. I asked what was wrong and he said that my Pop-pop had suffered a heart attack and was on life support. That they did not think he would make it through the night. Bethany suggested that we not call ahead with news this bad. We intended to knock on their door and tell them in person.When we got to the hotel, my mom was already awake, adorably lingering in her robe near the elevators. She was smiling, almost dancing eager to see my sisters. After the girls were hugged and kissed we told her that we needed to wake Dad. My sisters woke him up and we all waited in the hotel room as he called Darren back. I don't care that my dad's dad was seventy-five and that I am in my thirties.This was news that I did not want to hear or accept. We all thought that we had more time with him. Though exhausted, it took me hours to fall asleep that night.

The next morning my dad knocked on the door and told us the news we were dreading: his father was gone. The day ahead of us suddenly seemed too hard. Having attended her viewing the night before, I decided to skip the morning version which was before the church service. I borrowed my brother's truck in order to have time for breakfast. I sat alone in the hotel restaurant, feeling small and weary. I wanted to go back up to the room and get back into bed, covers over head. Instead I mechanically ate the food I could not taste and tried not to creep out the staff by crying too much.

Fair to the end, my grandmother had specified that all granddaughters be given a role in the church service and each of her six grandsons be a pallbearer. Though it was a cold February morning, the warm sun shone on us at the burial. Our aunts, uncles and cousins came up to us over the lunch that followed offering their condolences for our additional loss. My Uncle Tom, Aunt Margaret and Uncle Darren DeGaetano attended the whole Gemmell funeral. We made half-hearted jokes about how Pop-pop was a show stealer and couldn't just let that day be about my grandmother. One-upmanship from a natural performer and all that.

After the lunch Ben drove Bethany to the airport and then went back to Lancaster. Lauren's flight was early the next morning. That night my parents, Lauren and I stayed at my grandmother's house. We ordered a pizza and watched TV. No one suggested that we play Scrabble. I opened her closet to get a housecoat she would have wanted me to wear and breathed in her smell. She used Ivory soap but switching soap would not be enough.

The next morning my father flew to Florida with his brothers to help Edie make the arrangements for my grandfather's funeral.

On February 13 I took the train to the 30th St station in Philly and my mom picked me up. We drove together to the viewing in Marlton, New Jersey. My brother was not able to make it until the funeral service the next day. Lauren had gotten sick after my grandmother's funeral and was unable to make the trip up. Bethany and Stephen were driving up from Tennessee and had gotten stuck in traffic outside of D.C. They did not make the viewing. It was snowing. My parents were in the receiving line which was very long and filled with people I didn't know talking about a version of a man I didn't know. Everyone was talking about his life in show business and as a car salesman. I didn't know Domenick. I knew Pop-pop.

Domenick DeGaetano was forty-two when I was born. When I was growing up he lived in Marlton, New Jersey. He didn't come out to see us as often as my grandmother would. He didn't consistently buy us Christmas gifts and almost never remembered our birthdays. But when we drove up to his house, he would be waiting. He would scoop us up and shower us with kisses. No one could give better, faster kisses than Pop-pop. He would cook spaghetti and sausage. Made salad and heated garlic bread. Made his own gravy. That's spaghetti sauce to you non-Italians. He gave us soda and let us watch too much TV.

At the viewing I kept thinking thinking about what he had meant to me as a little girl. I remembered a trip I took with him to the grocery store when I was about six. It was summertime and in the car on the way to the store he let me ride on the center armrest. His arm was around me as he drove. The sun was in my eyes so I kept them closed. We were going to the grocery store with my uncle Tom and Bethany. He was talking and telling a story. He smelled like hairspray and his brand of cigarettes. I sat alone at the viewing crying over the memory of that scent.

At the grave site Edie's face was in her hands, weeping for the loss of her husband. His body was cremated and they said people could go up and sprinkle holy water on the urn. I didn't do that. I did not want to squeeze the plastic bottle of liquid onto the marble box. I wish I had the chance to give him a hug, to get his kisses and hear him tell me that he loved me, call me pal, tell me that I was number one. To hear his laugh. To watch him entertain my nieces and nephew the way he would entertain us when we were little.

The last time I saw him was almost a year ago. He had flown up for the christening of Darren's youngest daughter and had driven over from New Jersey to my parent's house to visit with our family. After dinner he pulled out his inhaler and made a it into a magic show for Ben's kids just like he made all his activities magical to us as children. He was magical to everyone that he loved.

I am lucky I had so much time with Grandmom and Pop-pop. Lucky that I had the chance to know them into my own adulthood. Many people do not get to share so much time with their grandparents.

I am happy they are at peace. Glad that they did not have lingering, painful illnesses at the end. Thankful they were clear of mind until the end.

I wish that we lived forever. I don't know what happens when we die: I don't believe in heaven. I think they each believed in Heaven but I don't know that we will meet again. No, not because I believe I'll be in Hell. But because I don't think that Heaven and Hell are what happens if there is any life after this life. But what I do know is that they were people that knew how to give love and receive love. They were loved. Memories of their lives will remain in my heart and the hearts of the many who loved them.