19 year old me

I can't tell you what age my grandma was.  Older people don't have an age when you're 19.  They're just . . . older.  I was headed full bore down the path to nowhere when she offered to take me on a trip.  Just her and I.  Anywhere I wanted to go (within reason of course).  It was an idea cooked up by my parents, I was sure.  A temporary deterrent from my great plan of unhappiness.

I chose St. George, Utah.  Close (so I could get back quicker) and it was home to real, live palm trees.  A sight I had not yet seen in my 19 years.

We were not yet 10 minutes out of town when "the conversation" began.  I was not one to shy away from asking personal questions and she was not one to shy away from honesty.  We were on the topic of her youth, a subject we hadn't ever really discussed, or at least one I hadn't taken the time to listen to.  She shared some surprisingly intimate  things.  It was the first time I can remember an adult trusting me enough to share adult information.

I stared at the freeway stretching before us and worked to digest the matter at hand.  A frantic blur of flapping wings, a thud and a feathery figure thrown to side of the road.  She didn't scream, or slow down or swerve.  I settled down further into the passenger's seat and thought about adulthood and dead birds.  My head ached.

My headache turned out to be a raging sinus infection and the beginnings of bronchitis.  Although the over the counter drugs I was taking turned my first palm tree sighting into a medicated haze my time with her remains wonderfully clear.  That was the weekend my grandmother became a real person to me.  Not just a grandma, but a woman with hopes, dreams, desires and disappointments.  The weekend my great plan of unhappiness was interrupted.

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She was dying of pan-creatic cancer when we gathered around the Thanksgiving table to share our favorite memories.  "Our trip to St. George," I said smiling across the room at her.  The light reflected off her snow white hair giving her the distinct appearance of a modern day angel.  My grandma had an age then.  She was 81.

I will be seeing palm trees this weekend

and thinking of her.