| Every time I look in the mirror, I see my grandpa. I have his hair. I got my curly hair from my mothers father. My mom has curly hair to a degree, but nothing like mine. Only my grandpa had hair like mine. My brother didn't get it, neither did any of my cousins. One of my aunts did, but that's it. He died when I was five. I barely know who he is, yet I see him every day. He was my first brush with death, and I took it so hard. I collapsed on the floor in my mothers bathroom and cried. She told me to stop crying and had my dad take me out of the room. I threw a fit because I couldn't go to the funeral, they wouldn't let me. I don't remember him, and yet, part of him is always with me.
I remember I use to love to sit on his lap, and feel his stomach go up and down as he breathed. I remember how his chair was right next to the fire place and he had a lamp right next to it. He always sat in that chair. Their house was so dark. I was afraid of the hallway that went to their bedroom because it was so dark. It was very dated. But I loved it there. I remember he use to take me fishing in the lake behind their house. He loved to fish. I remember the last present he ever gave me. It was a little yellow bear with a butterfly on its stomach, and when you squeezed it, it played a lullabye. I remember how he told me not to let my brother have it, because the eyes and nose were small and he could swallow them. My brother was only a baby then. And that's all I remember. And it kills me. I want to know this man who gave me my mass of curly hair, and I never will. I remember I loved him, very much, and I guess that's what's important.
I still have that bear. I treasured it when I was younger. After he died, I made sure to take extra special care of it, because of the significance it held. I rarely squeezed its tummy, because I wanted to make sure it played its song for a very long time, because once it stopped, then that was it. There was no fixing it.His music only stopped playing this year. I think I was a little more aware of things than most young kids are at five.
I loved ghosts at that age, and I use to play with Ouija boards all the time. Pretty crazy toy for a five year old, but I'm a weird person, it's only fitting I was a weird child. I got a message from something claiming to be him one time. It told me he loved me. And not long after that, he visited me. I wasn't scared of his ghost. I was rather comforted by it really.
Christmas is always a hard time of year for me. My grandpa died in december. My grandma use to spend the night with me when I was younger, because Santa Claus terrified me to the point of needing my parents to block my bedroom door. She would always sleep with me and made me feel safe. Then she'd get up with me early in the morning to go check out the presents. It was always 2 or 3 in the morning, but she never cared. She'd get up, make herself some hot tea and toast and eat while I tried to guess what santa left. Then she'd give me a special little gift, something she did for only me. It was usually one of her old night gowns, because I loved her old silky night gowns, or something similar, because she was really poor, she didn't have the money to buy me things, but her presents were always the best. We did this till she died, when I was thirteen. Christmas has never really felt the same for me ever since then, because I miss her. My grandma was my kindred spirit. She understood me and she loved me for who I was. I never exhausted her or frustrated her like I do my parents. I made her smile and laugh, and we enjoyed eachother so much. I still am not over her death, even all these years later. I think because it was so traumatic, for so many people. She had a stroke a day after we saw her. She was perfectly healthy when we said goodbye, and then she was dead. I was so mad we had to visit her that friday, because I wanted to go do something with the people who were supposed to be my friends, so I didn't say I love you when we said goodbye. And I never got another chance.
When we were cleaning out her apartment, this woman named Rosa came to visit. She was a mexican woman who lived in the retirement complex my grandma lived in. None of the residents would talk to her, because she was mexican, but my grandma made friends with her. When my grandma died, no one told Rosa, that's how badly they treated her. When she came to visit that day, she thought she would see my grandma. Instead, she found all of us clearing out her stuff. It was left to my mom to tell Rosa what had happened. She fell to the floor and started wailing about how my grandma was her only friend. My mom may be hard for me to understand, but I had to admire her for how strong she was then. Those images burned themselves into my memory, so very clearly.
My hamster, Rosie Cotton Gamgee died on thursday. It came out of nowhere, and was rather shocking. I guess it really shouldn't have been, but it was. I rescued her from a petstore after she'd been abandoned there. She was a really really big hamster, bigger than my hand, and she had been kept in a cage the size of a shoe box with no wheel and no toys. It literally made her crazy. She was so hard to care for because she was so messed up from her confinement. She HATED small spaces, and would literally cling and chew to try and break out. I had her in a 20 gallon tank and she chewed a six inch hole in the screen the first night. THAT'S how bad she was. I finally had to buy a 90 liter tupperware box to satisfy her need for space. People don't realize that animals can go just as stir crazy as we can. She'd been left at the petstore for months before I got to her. She was so friendly, but so frantic, it was hard for me to handle her. She never, EVER tried to bite me, even that first night. I had to beg and plead to bring her home, but I knew I couldn't leave her there like that. She was literally clinging to the bars of her little shoebox sized caged and shaking them. SHAKING them to get out. I had to save her. So saying goodbye to her was hard. She wasn't sick, I think she was just old.
I feel so haunted by death right now.
and on a less depressing note, there was a barn owl sitting on the lowest branch in the tree the closest to our house. He was beautiful. I went outside and got within five feet of him. He watched me the whole time but didn't bother to move. Just sat there and stared. I would have gone closer if I hadn't feared he'd try to rip my face off out of fear. Those talons and beak he had were sharp! I sat there breathlessly and just watched him, while he watched me back. Do you know who I thought of instantly? Can you guess?
My mom came outside and decided she needed to feed him. She wanted to throw cheese at him but I told her he was a carnivore and didn't eat cheese. So she threw lunchmeat. Ham, to be specific. He watched the pieces fly through the air and land with a plop, and then would look at her with the biggest WTF expression I had ever seen. He watched her throw about three pieces before he flew out to the back of the yard. She screamed that he needed to come back and eat the ham!
Needless to say, he did not come back and eat her ham. Maxwell had himself a mighty fine snack when he went out later though.
And for who I thought of when I saw the owl, take a look at my mood icon.
Note to self: MUST renew paid account. This nonpaid account is driving you crazy, REMEMBER TO FIX IT! |
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prying_pandora's journal
