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One. By. One.
Going to my great-grandmother’s house
Brought that childhood joy that starts to
Drift away as you grow old.
It brought kindness, kindness like singing songs on Christmas Day.
She’d make her classic chicken salad.
It had crunchy, crisp celery and bright green chives
That’s still here, not made by her though.
She’d have lefse ready
with brown-sugar butter.
Sweet sugar mixed with
floury dough.
Spread by her flower-engraved butter knives.
Her house smelt like
Dust or
That original “grandparent” smell.
I assume the dust smell came from the farm she lived on.
Coming in from the field in the fall
With the wind blowing in the dried dirt
Dried cornstalk.
Orange, yellow, and red leaves that
Crumble in your hands when you touch them.
Her hands would shake like crazy
With wrinkles that crinkled when she moved
The platinum white hair atop her head
Would sometimes get dyed blonde by my kind mother
I remember staying at her old, white house
Just months before she passed.
She’d just gotten a dog.
Now he’s a family dog.
My cousin and I were staying the night.
It was windy and because the house was so old,
It felt like it’d blow over.
You could hear the dog howling outside,
She hated having animals in the house.
My cousin and I, at our young ages,
Were afraid the dog would get attacked by the
Wild
Evil
Coyotes.
What we didn’t know at the time,
Was that there was something more evil
Coming our way.
That evil thing was the
Cold
Dark
Death.
A death that swallows someone whole
And everyone else around them.
Death that fills everyone with grief
Grief that just puts someone in a constant state of
Wonder. Wondering, “What happened?” or
“Why can’t we see grandma anymore?”
Almost 5 years ago,
I heard my mom get a call in the middle of the night.
That cold, bitter, January night.
I heard her leave briskly. Almost like she was distressed.
I had yet to find out where she went.
The next morning my brother and I were asking if we
Could go and see grandma.
My mom took the three of us into her room
One. By. One.
I was first, walking back out of her room weeping.
I’ll never know for sure but I can assume that my brothers
Were listening under the door for the
Terrible
Devastating
Shattering
News they had yet to hear.
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