“Pizza’s HERE!!!”

Terijo

Published in

Intimately Intricate

5 min readSep 11, 2016

I can still hear the door bell ring… Nearly 40 Years later…

“Pizza’s HERE!!!”

Come n GET IT!!

“Anndilaah!! Where are you??”

She was my everything, but.. Then again? I was only 14… What did I know..?

My 4 sisters and I would gather ‘round the table… getting what we could from the single pie we were offered as dinner… It was 1978… and times were hard.

“Andi..? Baby? You comin’???”

There is no blame to lay on that. Jobs were scarce. Money was tight.

We were fed. We were loved. Mostly. We were cared for… Mostly…

“Andilah!! C’mon! Bring Granny her dinner..!!”

Oh…? Did I forget to mention that other being…? Yeah… You know… The one I’ve been missing for the last 40 years???

Yeah… Her…

She lived on the third floor of our old Victorian home… Isolated by her heart disease in a time when there were no real options.

If we didn’t go to her? She was completely alone.

“Andilah!! C’mon!! Granny’s hungry!!! Where are you??!!”

“Coming Darte!!!”

See, my baby sister couldn’t say my name when she was tiny… So?

I became Darte…

Too close to Daddy..!!

By far…

but.. then again..? I was her protector, her caregiver…
Her Mother and her Father… as best as I could be.

And when my Dad slipped in his socks on the bare wood floor steps, with his two year old baby in his arms?

He thought she was saying

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!!”

But, she was actually saying …

“Darte! Darte! Darte!!”

Aw…SHIT!

It makes for some… Interesting family dynamics!!!

You know…? Pizza may be the best damned food ever invented…!!
Well.. next to German Potato salad, Spaetzle, and Bratwurst!!…

They kinda take the cake! No matter what!!

What..?

I’m procrastinating..?

Right… Ok then…

“ Here I am Darte… Where’s Granny’s dinner??”
“Right here baby… Make sure she’s ok… I’ve got yours right here, ok?”
“OK!!”

That Cindy Crawford smile never dims as she rushes away…

Never mind… if she’s stalled too long? She might lose her dinner, because..?

8 slices… 5 girls from 17 to 6 years old…

It’s not enough… but? We make do…

She better hurry… No… Better save her some more…
Just in case she gets distracted.

Granny’s plate’s securely tucked in her hands…

God… She’s gorgeous!! And sooo sweet!! Can’t wait to see what she’s gonna be!!

Dad’s home… He’s showering… They’re having “date night”…

UGH!! Yeah…What EVER!!! They should have gotten divorced YEARS ago…!!! The whole thing is so stupid!

“Darte..?? She won’t wake up…!”

“What?! What do you mean…? Maybe she didn’t hear you..!!
C’mon, baby… Try again…!!”

Dammit…!! I got so much homework to do… Don’t really care! But, I pushed the limit already… Gotta study for that Bio test too… And the laundry… and the Kitchen…

Who’s on Dish duty tonight??

“Darte..? She’s not waking up!! What do I do..???”

Dammit!! I don’t really care right now!!! I just want the world to shut UP already!!!

“Um… I dunno, baby… Gimme a minute?!!”

Let the bastard deal with it…!!!

“Hey Dad??? Dad…???!!”

“Daddy? She won’t wake up!! I have her dinner… what do I do?? Darte isn’t answering me…!!”

“It’s ok…I got it baby…You go down and get your supper now, ok?”

I can hear them talking at the top of the stairs and I’m relieved that he’s stepping in so I don’t have to…

I had no idea…My 14 year old brain simply wouldn’t process it…
I just… Didn’t understand…
I couldn’t… Wouldn’t understand why my Granny wouldn’t wake up.

Why her heart would have stopped in the middle of the night, told her pacemaker to fuck off, and just let her pass in her sleep.

I couldn’t comprehend that she’d leave so suddenly. It simply wasn’t possible. Never mind the fact that she had one remaining functioning heart valve, a pacemaker and had already survived three major heart attacks in the last 3 years… It just wasn’t going to happen. Not to me. She’d never leave me…! Not her. Never her..!!

My mother came to the house for her “date night” with her husband, my father… My Dad came down to meet her on the front porch, and quietly spoke to her, while holding her hands. I watched her push him away, throwing his touch off her like it burned… And I heard her start to yell at him that he was wrong. That he had to be wrong…

And I watched her as she ran up the stairs…

And I heard her crying…

And I couldn’t comprehend why she was screaming…

“No…!! MAMA!!!! No!! No!!!! MAMA??!!
NO!!! NONONONONONONONONONONO!!!!!!”

What??? Why is Mommy crying?? What’s wrong?? What’s happening??!!!

“Honey, your Granny is gone… looks like she died in her sleep last night…”

My Dad. To his credit he… tried…

Wait… What??? No… What are you talking about..???
No… Nooo!! Nonononononononono!!!!

NOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

NONONONONONONONONO!!!!

She’s… What?? GONE???

What??? No…!!!!

My sisters running up the stairs after my mother sounded like a rolling thunder clap on a stormy summer day. They were all in stunned disbelief, yet screaming and denying the truth of what my father was saying… as I was, as my mother was… Crying in our disbelief that she had left us. That she was forever gone from our need for her soothing touch. Her softly spoken words. Her gently calming ways.

I was to have spent the day with her… Like we always did…!! We spent every day together. Talking… Cooking… Taking care of the family.

But I didn’t… Not that day… That last day… I avoided her… I avoided everything… I was fourteen and fed up as most fourteen year old’s are, and I avoided the one person I should have been with…

Just one last time.

I took care of her… I spent my days with her… I LOVED that woman like I will never love any other… She was my sanctuary, my safe place… And she always knew exactly the right thing to say.

Once, when my little sister expressed her little girl concern about Gran’s health and possibly dying one day, my Gran looked at her and said…

You see that little white butterfly over there? The one with the tiny black specks on it’s wings? Well… When I am gone? Every time you see one of those butterflies, you’ll know it’s me, come to see how you are, and to say hello to you.