Sundays at Granny's

My granny's house was the central hub for the family for as long I can remember. Since her death in November and subsequent burial in December 2007, the surviving relatives have gone their separate ways. My architect cousin continues to work eighty-plus hours a week, my schoolteacher aunt enrolled in computer classes two years after having first purchased her desktop, and there have been two stillborns within the last two weeks.

Granny was the glue that held us together, even with my cousin and his new family stationed in Germany, and me in New York, she had a way of uniting all with phone calls. She keep us updated on who was doing what, and possible reasons as to why if it were something untoward.

She was ninety when she went home to glory, and I'm glad she lived as long as she did, but her long life brought with it a sense of expectancy. We all expected that she'd outlive us all as a testament to her will to survive and personal strength.

There's a void at granny's house in Houston. It's difficult for some to visit the house in her absence, because they know she won't be sitting on the corner of the sofa when they step inside the living room.

Sundays at Granny's after church were second-nature. The children raced inside to change into play clothes, some of the women stepped out of their heels and into slippers, while others headed to the kitchen to warm up the meal that had been prepared the night before or that morning. My mother or other aunts usually made the dessert.

There's no tragedy to speak of other than the splintering of my family back home. I'm powerless from where I sit, not that I could do anything to heal and reunite my family. It's painful to face Granny's absence. We all remember how she'd shuffle about her house, sometimes refusing help, her path blurry due to cataracts.

I feel her absence in my life, too. I've been unable to discard the ticket stub for the flight to Houston, as if holding onto it will bring her back to me, to us. It won't. Letting go will take sometime yet. When I close my eyes I can still smell her coffee percolating in the kitchen on the gas stove, and remember what the peach preserves looked like in the corner closet. Each room holds a special memory, all of which involve Granny's wisdom, guidance, energy, and smile.

Granny Gums' 91st Birthday

Today would have been my granny's 91st birthday. I'd like to think she's in heaven celebrating with her husband, three sons, two daughters, and two grandsons who preceded her in death. What a party that would be!

My grandfather cooked and baked from scratch, my uncle was an Army cook, and both of my aunts were versed in the kitchen. I imagine that there would be lots of food and reminiscing as they look down upon us.

I scanned the picture on the right when I was in Houston for Granny's wake and funeral in December 2007. This is the woman I remember who'd take care of her family and neighbors. She'd walked to the store for ailing or otherwise unable people without a second thought, or even a grocery list.

It seems only yesterday that I spoke to her on the phone, but it's been several months. Today's her birthday, and I intend to celebrate as if she were still alive. We were the party family, chronicled in many photographs my cousin Carl and I scanned in his living room before and after granny's going home service. I like the sound of that - going home - as some African Americans refer to death and what might follow. Kathleen Battle sings a spiritual of the same title.

Perhaps our family took it for granted that Granny Gums would always be around, sitting on the corner of the living room sofa. We have our memories, which can be unreliable, save for the dated photographs that had to be gently pried from the albums in order to be scanned.

I'm imagining a scene at Miss Joe's Café in Heaven. Granny's obviously the owner and hostess. The guests are enjoying themselves, the music (blues, jazz, bebop), and the food. Henry Q., my grandfather, and Uncle Eddie are barbecuing out back, my Aunt Mae is making potato salad, pinto beans, and cornbead, while Aunt Goldie is baking lemon glaze cakes and dinner rolls. My cousins Dwayne and Broderick are waiting tables, and my uncle "Baby" Charles is the bartender. What a wonderful party I see in my mind's eye. Deceased relatives and family friends gathered to wish Granny a happy ninety-first birthday!

Holiday Season & Job Search

This Christmas will be the first time in many years that Granny will not hold court from the corner of her living room sofa. She survived past Thanksgiving despite a sobering diagnosis from her doctor and hospice nurse. She waited until family returned from Sunday church service and took her last breath. I was miles away in New York when she passed away. My mother called immediately to relay the news. We went back and forth on the phone, my insisting that Granny hadn't died, she insisting that I'd have to return to help lay Granny to rest.

I was overwhelmed by the news that I'd no longer see Granny in that familiar spot, wearing her housecoat and fuzzy slippers she favored later in life when indoors.

My new job search has been ego-deflating since I returned from Houston for Granny Gums' wake and funeral. I've had no energy or desire to look for a job. I'm having difficulty watching anything on TV that deals with death. I recently watched Steel Magnolias and teared up during cemetery scene. I've never been emotional when watching funerals or death on TV and in movies. I am a big fan of Six Feet Under on HBO.

What is New Year's Eve and New Year's Day without Granny's reminding us to eat black-eyed peas for good luck?

I'm reminded of the play Death Comes To Us All, Mary Agnes, if only for the title that I'm not excluded from the death and mourning. I know the wounds will eventually heal, but it seems just like yesterday that I spoke to Granny on the phone.

Dispatch from Texas - Granny's Funeral

I traveled earlier to Houston to help one of my aunts tweak the wake and funeral programs for my granny's funeral this weekend. I had thought I'd also collect some of granny's belongings to take back to New York with me, but I couldn't walk into her bedroom. I haven't found the strength to step inside the room where she died.

The best intentions sometimes fall short when in the midst of things; when faced with what we planned from hundreds of miles away, we clam up or alter plans.

The last time I was in Houston was for another funeral, my aunt who succumbed to cancer. I know that death is a part of life. I'd say that while reading online newspapers of tragic events near and far, or the local news. It's not until death takes a loved one from your reach that the philosophizing and emotional distance is no longer enough to shield you from the grief. The television or computer monitor is a buffer from the pain others undoubtedly feel as they're distraught on camera or video.

My two flights to Houston were fraught with wind turbulence. The aircraft felt like a crop duster or toy plane as it bobbed and weaved at various altitudes in attempt to find calm air. I clawed the armrest, sure that the airplane would spiral to the ground. It wasn't as if I wished for death, but a thought occurred to me that I wouldn't have to walk into granny's house without her sitting on the sofa, phone pressed into her lap waiting for a call. I wouldn't have had to put on a suit and polish my shoes this Friday evening before the wake at the family church. I wouldn't have had to stand in front of the congregation and reminiscence about Granny Gums without collapsing to the floor, making a spectacle of myself.

I erased images of an angry mythological Greek god or goddess standing in front of the plane gently blowing against the craft for amusement. I remember praying to God to calm the wind and allow the plane safe passage into Houston. I was en route to eulogize my Granny, and nothing would prevent that from taking place. My cousin Carl picked me up from the airport. We didn't fall apart in the airport when we saw each other, and I don't know that I thought we would. There's usually drama in our family, so we occupied our travel time poring over various relatives' hiccups and disasters.

There's a marked absence in Granny's house, one that was once filled with nine daughters, two sons, and countless other neighborhood children. Each bedroom was a protective chamber for its slumbering inhabitants. The kitchen where the girls and women in the family sat alongside the stove to get their hair pressed with a straightening comb has changed and now doesn't feel as warm or vibrant. The living room, or meeting room as it seemed to me, where everyone filtered through like a revolving door, is now void of Granny's voice.

Carl and I have been scanning pictures since Monday night. We Were The Williamses. We Were The Party Family! There are so many pictures in various photo albums of us hosting birthday parties, at banquets, at house parties, or picnics. My family was large back then, and even larger now that we're into our fifth generation. One of the biggest tragedies of Granny's death is that she was the glue that held this family together. Now that she'll no longer be physically on earth, I think everyone will scatter to the four winds. Each one of us will leave the funeral and accompanying family dinner changed -- reflective, remorseful, or regretful.

Death comes to us all, but we're never prepared even if it's preceded by a prolonged illness. Death comes to us all, and we're left to think about things left unsaid or undone. Flipping through the various photo albums, I know that granny lived a full and rewarding life. Rarely was she without a brilliant smile, head tilted to one side, with her signature poise radiating from the picture.

Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Ode To Granny Gums

My ninety-year-old granny took her last breath today at 2:30 p.m. Houston time, surrounded at home by family. I'm told that my cousin turned off and unplugged the oxygen tank, after checking her pulse, and finding none. She had been unconscious since last Wednesday night. The doctor and hospice nurse had written her off as not surviving through Thanksgiving. She had several stints in the hospital this year, each visit according to the attending doctor would be her last one. She repeatedly proved them wrong as a testament to her will to live.

Granny was born in Texas in 1917, and I can only read about what her life was like back then as an African American girl in the segregated south. She lived through the Great Depression, two World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam War.

A month ago I was cleaning the living room when I felt my granny's presence next to me, and saw her face in my mind's eye. It was a harbinger of bad news. I immediately called my mother and demanded to know whatever secrets my family was hiding. My mother tried to assure me that all was right as it pertained to Granny Gums (my nickname for her). Mother called again in about an hour to confirm what I felt in my bones three thousand miles away. Granny was in the hospital, and wasn't expected to live more than a few days back then.

Granny would always tell me that I'd live a long time because I'd call her just as she was talking or thinking about me. Granny had so many isms and expressions, her most famous when someone would ask her how she was doing, she would respond: "Fine and dandy, mighty handy, sweet as candy!"

I want to believe that Granny will be around in spirit for years to come to advise and/or warn of potential pitfalls, just as she came to me telepathically one month ago to tell me she was hospitalized. We were very close in life, and I don't expect that to change now that her soul has left her physical body. She can now travel wherever she desires - New York, Germany where my cousin and new wife and newborn lives, or the outer stretches of Kermit, Texas, where my other cousin lives.

I've fond memories of Granny. My fondest being of her transporting me under the cover of dawn in a wheelbarrow to her house when I was five years-old. I was wearing footed pajamas, school clothes on a hanger, and lunchbox in tow. It was probably a five minute journey, if that, but we were together in the quiet of the early morning.

Granny was my biggest supporter, along with my aunt Margaret Ann, who'd walked to every daytime assembly during my three years in junior high that I was on stage regardless of if I only said, "Good Morning and Welcome." I don't think she had a favorite grandchild or great-grandchild, but some of us were closer to her than others. It's a given fact in a family as large as ours that there would be cliques, alliances, and hurt feelings.

Granny was the go-to person for family and neighbors alike, running errands and sitting with recent widows and widowers in their living room or front porch. She was known for her energy, spirit, and beautiful smile.

I remember her being a human shield when a few of the grandchildren were about to get a spanking. We'd sit suctioned at her side, careful to not blink for fear of one of our mothers snatching us from Granny's protection.

Granny gave me a nickname, Keneritz, one day after struggling to recall my christened name because my younger brothers and I have similar-sounding names, as do three of my cousins. Some of my relatives refer to me using this nickname, and I've coined my budding production company with the same moniker.

I know I didn't imagine my granny's visit, nor are my feelings for her fleeting. She is the strongest woman I've known to date, measuring in at 4'11", and probably one hundred pounds. Her strength was emotional and spiritual. I remember she was firm in her faith and belief in God, but that didn't rule out her telling me years ago that she communicated with my deceased grandfather, despite the raised eyebrows from her children. I look forward to speaking with her in my dreams and waking life.