Florida Through My Years - Part IV: 1982

When I turned 18

my grandmother died.

We’d said goodbye in Maine that summer
after dinner at a Mexican restaurant.
She was leaving the next day to drive to Florida.

She gave me a hug that was a little out of the ordinary,

and said I love you, which was very out of the ordinary,

and she died of a heart attack

a few later

in a hospital in White Plains

on her way to Florida.

I wasn’t sure about going to Florida 

that winter vacation from college.

Nothing about Florida mattered without my grandmother.

Nothing about Florida belonged to my grandfather.

Nothing was made or cooked or baked or taken care of

by him.

He seemed lost,

and I was alone.

My mother lived in her own fog.

I’d gone from talking with her regularly

to talking with her hardly at all that semester.

She just didn't think to call me very often.

I went.

There were no hermits in the cookie tin,
there was no pale chicken,
there was no food in the refrigerator
except for a bag of Lenders bagels
and a container of skim milk.
There were foil pans in the freezer
covered with more foil and marked with directions on how to bake them.
My mother had cooked for him when she'd been here.
So had a few of the neighbors who were left.
There were new neighbors next door.
Mrs. Warshauer had moved,
Mr. Warshauer had died.
Mrs. Levine still lived in the next building
but she was as hard of hearing as my grandfather
so they didn't talk much
since it was tiring to yell.

My grandfather ate cornflakes in the kitchen

sitting at the glass table,

when he remembered to eat.

I made his bed every morning,

I drove to the store for groceries

and we made our way

through meals somehow.

He and my grandmother never seemed to love each other,

but he missed her as if they had.

When I was 18, I didn’t know him well.

He’d always take two weeks each year to visit Maine,

and I’d see him for a week in Florida

during dinner

or during our drives from the furniture store,

And he’d sign the cards my grandmother sent me

on my birthday

and we’d call each other then since

our birthdays were only two days apart.

He had taught me how to play gin,
he knew how to flip a spoon into a glass
and blow smoke rings from his pipe,

but he didn’t know how to make a home.

Florida was empty without my grandma.

All that talk that had happened

around tables with meals and baked things and

jello molds and phone calls and people at the door

stopped.

I opened her dresser drawers

and found the few things left there
that were hers

and touched them and smelled them.

The gold wire coin purse,

the  opera glasses in a worn leather case,

the few handkerchiefs,
a shell bracelet I'd bought for her in Bar Harbor,

the satin sachet that barely smelled of powder or lavender.

I wore her soft cotton white bathrobe,

I painted my nails with her red polish.

My grandfather slept late every morning.
He'd lie on his side with his hand on his forehead
and breathed loudly
what have I done what have I done?
what will I do what will I do?

While he slept ,

I went to the pool to read

and to listen to the chatter of busy people around me,
heard where they would go after their doctor appointments,
heard where they'd been for dinner the night before,
the kaleidoscope colors dancing in my closed eyelids,

the mockingbirds cheep cheeping.

I swam to cool off

and dried myself of on the long towel

my grandmother had bought me just for the pool.

At night my grandfather sat in his chair

and watched TV turned up so loud.
He rested his elbow on the armrest
and propped his head up with his hand.

He spoke so little

to me,
he never smiled.

And in the morning, I reached into the cabinet
where the fat lady smiled from the door,
and poured him his cornflakes
before heading outside
and slithering into the pool
like a seal at the aquarium.
Grandma, watch me.