Before I Sat Here
By Rebecca Razzall
My grandmother “nana” passed away this week. Oh the joys of modern day, I found out via Facebook. I will always think of her when I see breadsticks. She used to keep a big glass jar of them in her kitchen. As a toddler, I got a kick out of the fact that I thought I was calling her banana. She had one of those twirly “Sit n’ Spin” seats at her house that I went nuts over. My almost two-year-old son was on one of those last week at a friend’s house, for the first time. He loved it as much as I used to.
My “nana”, my father’s mother, was the last of my four grandparents to go. These past twelve years has been a full life cycle, bookended by the passing of my other grandmother, the one we actually called “grandma”, my mother’s mother. That year of 2005 was difficult. She and I were extraordinarily close.
Before I sat down to gather my thoughts here, I poured a cup of Lapsang Souchong (a Chinese black tea smoked over pinewood). It brought me back to the pine trees of my grandma’s front yard, where we rested underneath in the air that felt ten degrees cooler. There was our “happy place”, on a bed of fallen needles, where the light sparkled in. I sat there often with my Aunt Mary, the youngest daughter of grandma’s ten children. Yes, ten! Sometimes my grandma would join, and we’d talk about our dreams and memories. Other days we’d just listen. To the bird song, the trees rustle, or the whirr of a neighbor’s lawn mower.
Who takes the time to really listen, these days? Before social media on cell phones, and the insta-gratification of a post, pausing and listening was something we just simply did throughout our days. Filling or emptying space, however you want to look at it.
In college, I was paired up with a mentor called Dani Novak. He brought me out to nature to examine pine cone fractals, and to sit on rocks by a pond. “Listen!” he’d proclaim, “Listen! Quietly… isn’t it all beautiful? Nature is speaking to us.” It was 1999, I was nineteen years old, and though I enjoyed his zest and the practice he encouraged… part of me was elsewhere, impatient about what I was to become in life.
These days, in the age of hyper connectivity… giving pause to listen and make space can be easily clouded by signal, if we’re not careful. Taking time to reconnect to ourselves and what the present has to offer — to truly listen… is now much more of a conscious, chosen practice. An art form, even.
Before I sat down here, I went to my jewelry box to find the earrings and turquoise ring my grandma had given to me, twenty something years ago, after one of our marathon chats over tea. I put the oval crystal studs into my ears, and recalled her voice explaining, “they’re not diamonds. I received them in one of those mail prize giveaways, so they’re not expensive. But they’re what I have to offer, and I want you to have them — to remember these times we’ve had together.” I wore them every day for the next twelve years, until I bought real diamonds with a hard earned work bonus, which complemented the ring from my now husband — who grandma would have adored. Still, I pull her earrings out once in a while, to connect with her, and her love, and remember.
Before I sat down, to be here with my pen, paper, my ancestors, and the well of sorrow that’s formed in my throat and spills over the corners of my eyes… I grabbed “Gift of Power” from my bedroom bookshelf… the small make-shift row at the top of my dresser, devoted to important landmark books of my life — others include “the Mission of Art” by Alex Grey, “Tao Te Ching” by Lao Tsu, “Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke, and “Le Petit Prince” (in french) by Antoine De Saint-Exupery.
I read “Gift of Power” in the spring before graduating from film school. That summer I had a gig at a local printing plant, a few highway exits away from where both sets of my grandparents lived. I spent time at each of their homes during lunch breaks, or after my workdays ended — to see and hug nana and papa, and grandma and grandpa. Grandma and I spent the most time together, as we were best friends. I brought to her “Gift of Power”, written by Lakota Medicine man Archie Lame Deer, and asked that she give it a read — it struck a deep chord. She always took the time to read and comment on what I gave her.
Before I sat here, grandma poured me my first cup of tea when I was five, to talk “about everything.” She then taught me to oil paint when I was twelve, and called up Bob Ross himself, live on TV, to let him know how much she and I enjoyed painting the happy trees (we painted pines) together. I’d do anything to get the VCR tape where she recorded that phone call. Or to get that painting we did together, back. In my early twenties, when I told grandma, who was a writer, about my desire to write “something”, someday — she said “you’ll be able to write what you want to write in your thirties.” It’s funny that… because all I seem to return to in my writing, is her.
On the back cover of “Gift of Power” is this excerpt: “As my father lay dying, he gripped my hand. I felt his power flowing into me until it filled my whole being. At that moment, my life changed altogether from what it had been. My future became something I could only partly sense, like looking at a distant mountain range half hidden in a blue haze. At that moment, the man I had been died, and a new man took his place.”
What I didn’t know — or maybe part of me did in some alternate part of the universe… was that a few years later, my grandma and I would have the same experience. I arrived at her bedside in hospice, that summer of 2005, where she was dying of pancreatic cancer. She was too young. She was sleeping, but conscious, waiting. I told her that I was there with her, and that I loved her. I layed my hand on her forehead. An hour later, I felt her leave through me.
It took me a year to go back to her house to visit my grandpa in the living room, where she once taught me how to crochet and knit clothes for my dolls. I sat with him for an hour, knowing where the book would be. “I loved the book — but it made me cry!” grandma said when I asked her what she’d thought. In the dusty hallway bookcase upstairs, I found it there, last touched by her. I had forgotten until then about Archie Lame Deer’s experience at his father’s death. I giggled through my tears, because it lent further meaning to when I gave the eulogy at my grandma’s funeral — where the priest accidentally introduced me as my grandma’s daughter.
The summer of my first grandma’s passing, was the start of a new lifecycle. I then began a decades worth of producing TV commercials, I met my husband, sang a ton of karaoke in lower East side New York bars (was even a singer in a band, for a hot second), bought our first home, travelled the globe, produced a couple films, moved to Los Angeles, started a niche blog about creating and consciousness, and I gave birth to our son. Both of my grandfathers passed away during this time, and now, my nana has gone, too. She’s left the same week I mark a new cycle in life, by earning my title as a tea sommelier (on the new moon in Gemini, my sign). Yes, I’m beginning a new career in the world of tea, and I guess we’ll see what else... It’s my birthday on Sunday, June 4 — my nana’s funeral is the day following.
I haven’t booked a flight back yet. I was just there on the East coast two weeks ago to see my sister and her family, my parents, my brothers, my friends and colleagues… Why hadn’t I gone to visit my nana? A toddler in tow, nap schedules to work around, too many people to see, and being slightly jetlagged… those were all excuses, but not good reasons.
Why hadn’t nana come to my wedding? Or my sister’s wedding? Or my son’s baby blessing? She had always planned on it — her space was RSVP’d “yes” for those milestone events — but she never felt quite well enough on those days to show up. Why… why did my nana’s first born daughter, Patti, have to be taken away from her, so young? She was murdered in her twenties. My nana’s life overflowed with the beauty of her seven, now six children and their grandchildren — surrounded by people who loved her — yet she was rife with the overwhelming and unavoidable heartache of having lost her first born.
My dad sent me a text last Thursday, the day I was taking my final tea sommelier exam, to let me know nana wasn’t doing well and would likely pass in the coming days. I called her cellphone and left a voicemail to say that I loved her. I don’t know if she heard it or not, and she passed a few days later.
“Do you know how much I love ya?” my papa used to say in his booming radio voice to all of us grandchildren. He was the love of my nana’s life and had made a successful career in radio and advertising, in his day. There is a box full of analogue tape in their attic, which I’d like to go through and digitize, before they disintegrate. In there is said to be an early audio file of Martin Luther King, which my papa recorded. He told the family that there wasn’t any other documentation of that particular speech, available to the public. “It was raining, and I was the only one out there recording that day.” A singular recording of an important event… that would never happen today.
It’s too late to go back to see my nana, to look into her eyes, and have one more hug. The last time I saw her was at my nephew’s one-year birthday party, last spring. Why hadn’t I made time to go back to visit her since? I hope it’s not too late, to at least save and digitize my papa’s legacy.
Before I sat down here, to write this, I was in my nana and papa’s attic, fifteen years ago, kneeling by a box of things that belonged to Patti, who was also a Gemini like me — she was June 14. There was an old brush there, still cradling the strands of her hair… those hairs from my nana’s beloved first born’s head… they were still there over twenty years later, waiting for their owner to return.
Patti died the week that I, my parents’ first born, was conceived. I can’t imagine the heartache my nana sat with, especially now that I have a child of my own. In looking through old photos, I’ve noticed that I resemble Patti a little bit. Somewhere in my nana’s heart was the debilitating grief that her firstborn was robbed of having a career, or a wedding, a baby, some travel, another cup of tea, a life. Now that my nana has passed, I sit there in the attic with her, I hold her hand and give her a big hug… I tell her that she can let that box go.
The last thing I grabbed, before I sat here with my pen and paper, is a framed photo of me, my papa, my nana, and my great aunt Eileen, nana’s only sister. It was taken at my parents’ home, during my high school graduation party. I can see a splash of water on my shirt from the water balloon fight we all had outside. My hair was as long as it is now… thicker, but just as long. I can see in the reflection of the framed photo behind my head, the faint figure of my dad, snapping the picture of us. My arms are wrapped around my papa to the right, and my nana to the left. Their arms are wrapped around me, too. Before I sat down, to write this.
The night after that photo was taken, a couple dozen of my classmates and I went into the land preserve behind my parents home. We built a big fire, amidst the birch, oak, and pine trees. My cousin David, my Aunt Nancy’s first born, brought beer, and we had a big party that ended in muddy teens drunkenly crashing at my parents house. I was subsequently grounded for a month that summer, and then I went to college and began the rest of my life.
I’ve now finished my entire pot of Lapsang Souchong. My mouth tastes of smokey pine, and I’m back at my happy place, at grandma’s house. A photo of she and I is framed on my home office wall. I’m about eight years old, and my grandma sits in her Queen-like wicker chair. Pine tree branches photobomb us in the foreground. My sister and uncle are nearby.
I miss grandma’s hugs. And I still hear nana’s voice singing “Three Little Fishes”, as I sing it these days to my son during his bath time. I miss the happy birthday messages that both sets of grandparents used to sing on my answering machines, or sometimes when I picked up the phone.
My tea dances in my belly, as the sunlight through pines in the wind. I know it will take me to where I need to go next. I open my copy of Tao Te Ching, which I studied the same year I read “Gift of Power”. I find a page that I had bookmarked long ago.
Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment. Mastering others requires force; Mastering the self needs strength.
He who knows he has enough is rich. Perseverance is a sign of will power. He who stays where he is endures. To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.
Before I sat here, steeped in pine, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get to my nana’s funeral. It would mean flying on my birthday, arranging childcare for my son, and facing her dead body that I was too distracted to go hug, when I was so close by a couple weeks ago. But none of those are good reasons, and so now… I’ve booked my trip. I’m going to show up.
Before I sat here, I also knew that my life shifted from what it had been — as the Lakota medicine man’s had — and that a new woman took her place. Rest in peace to all of my sweet grandparents, and the ancestors who persevered before, who are eternally present. On Sunday I fly back, and my four grandparents will be singing me happy birthday all the way home.
