She's gone.
Her name was Katharine Rebecca Louise Goodale Aschmann and I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. She was incredibly bright and articulate, attentive, loving and gentle. Last Saturday she had a stroke, and could kind of communicate her love for her family through smooches and a sort of attempt at saying "we have a great family, I love you, I know I'm loved, there's lots of love."
My Aunts and uncles were all really high strung, but trying to cope and be forgiving as best they could. My mom was really really sweet and good to and with me. This time around it was her twin sister that was painful and awkward. I had really good conversations with my cousin, Aunts, Uncles and friends of the family. There was a brief shared moment of dark humor with my mom at the burial at which we both cried and she said " I want my mommy". Also while laughing. Crossword puzzles were perused.
I went into the library and talked to people about her education and brilliance. Shared interests and whatnot. We had many shared loves. History, Flowers, mythology and stories. I pulled a few off the shelves with permission from my uncles, one of whom lived with and cared for her. The other who came over every weekend to visit and care for her. I sat with the books and cried for a few minutes. I brought them out of the library into the common space so that I could be with family while I revisited some of the ways I'd hoped to become like her. I put the books aside in a stack.
My aunt came into the room accusing me of looting my grandmother's house. and proceeded to tell the whole room what a horrible thing that kind of behavior is. How dare you just take things etc etc. One of the books I'd pulled off the shelf had been co-authored by her and had lived at the house for 30 years, otherwise untouched. Other people later said " If she cared so much about the book, she would have taken it with her rather than leaving it to collect dust in this house for 30 years". This stack of books was smallish. less than 20. Grandma was very keen on sharing information and increasing learning and we'd often traded books we found interesting. At Christmas I'd meant to ask if I could borrow those books, I never got the chance. She was too tired, and visiting hours were too short.
When I went back this weekend to bury her and say goodbye to her corpse, I went looking for a quiet place to connect with my memory of her and cry. All the other rooms were occupied so I went into the library. I'd spent a lot of time playing and staying in that room as a kid and as I grew older. The sofa bed was folded out from someone having spent the night there and not refolded it. That translates to it being inconvenient for looking through old books that were my grandmother's educational legacy. An Annotated Alice In Wonderland, A copy of The Iliad, Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, her medieval history textbooks, and a work from the 1960s about the Dead Sea Scrolls etc. Every book on those shelves had been there for at least 10 years, I know cause grandma had told me so. She'd spoken about how she really just needed to get rid of so many of them. I had every reason to believe that looking at these books would have not only been okay, but would have made my grandmother really happy.
I feel sort of dirty and sad that anyone in my family would even in those moments of grief think anything like this of me. I don't and never have wanted my grandmother's stuff. I want her back. More than anything in the world I wanted her to be around for this coming weekend. My Mills college graduation. I wanted to be able to thank her and really show her how much she meant to me. The school that she wished she could have attended was the school that her first grandchild to graduate with a college degree would go to. I wanted her to be proud of me. I wanted her to be glad to have shared her name, she went by Louise, with me. I'm Amelia Louise Hogan and my heart is really bruised. I don't want anything other than her love and affection.
I know that I she was old, so I can't say " it wasn't her time" or " it's just not right". I'm Pagan enough to know that those things aren't true. She was tired and aged. She'd lived 90 amazing years. She rode by wagon to hear her first radio, bore seven children, and was educated. She's a part of the circle of life and as the crone has passed, mother becomes crone, and daughter becomes mother even if not in physiological senses. My children are Art, stories, and songs rather than living breathing human children. I think she sort of saw me as living out the creative life of my dreams.
None of that will bring her back. People have pulled me aside and said weird things like: "well, feel better" and "You were her favorite". I happen to know my cousin is not chopped liver. She meant so much to me that I can't even express adequately the loss that aches my belly and clenches my heart.
I am not a thief, and most of my family understood that. In moments of her own grief I think she probably knows that too. Owie.
To the only woman I've ever know to have put over 1million miles on her pick up truck, descendant of the inventor of the Ferris wheel. I loved you mother of my mother. Happy mother's day.
My Aunts and uncles were all really high strung, but trying to cope and be forgiving as best they could. My mom was really really sweet and good to and with me. This time around it was her twin sister that was painful and awkward. I had really good conversations with my cousin, Aunts, Uncles and friends of the family. There was a brief shared moment of dark humor with my mom at the burial at which we both cried and she said " I want my mommy". Also while laughing. Crossword puzzles were perused.
I went into the library and talked to people about her education and brilliance. Shared interests and whatnot. We had many shared loves. History, Flowers, mythology and stories. I pulled a few off the shelves with permission from my uncles, one of whom lived with and cared for her. The other who came over every weekend to visit and care for her. I sat with the books and cried for a few minutes. I brought them out of the library into the common space so that I could be with family while I revisited some of the ways I'd hoped to become like her. I put the books aside in a stack.
My aunt came into the room accusing me of looting my grandmother's house. and proceeded to tell the whole room what a horrible thing that kind of behavior is. How dare you just take things etc etc. One of the books I'd pulled off the shelf had been co-authored by her and had lived at the house for 30 years, otherwise untouched. Other people later said " If she cared so much about the book, she would have taken it with her rather than leaving it to collect dust in this house for 30 years". This stack of books was smallish. less than 20. Grandma was very keen on sharing information and increasing learning and we'd often traded books we found interesting. At Christmas I'd meant to ask if I could borrow those books, I never got the chance. She was too tired, and visiting hours were too short.
When I went back this weekend to bury her and say goodbye to her corpse, I went looking for a quiet place to connect with my memory of her and cry. All the other rooms were occupied so I went into the library. I'd spent a lot of time playing and staying in that room as a kid and as I grew older. The sofa bed was folded out from someone having spent the night there and not refolded it. That translates to it being inconvenient for looking through old books that were my grandmother's educational legacy. An Annotated Alice In Wonderland, A copy of The Iliad, Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, her medieval history textbooks, and a work from the 1960s about the Dead Sea Scrolls etc. Every book on those shelves had been there for at least 10 years, I know cause grandma had told me so. She'd spoken about how she really just needed to get rid of so many of them. I had every reason to believe that looking at these books would have not only been okay, but would have made my grandmother really happy.
I feel sort of dirty and sad that anyone in my family would even in those moments of grief think anything like this of me. I don't and never have wanted my grandmother's stuff. I want her back. More than anything in the world I wanted her to be around for this coming weekend. My Mills college graduation. I wanted to be able to thank her and really show her how much she meant to me. The school that she wished she could have attended was the school that her first grandchild to graduate with a college degree would go to. I wanted her to be proud of me. I wanted her to be glad to have shared her name, she went by Louise, with me. I'm Amelia Louise Hogan and my heart is really bruised. I don't want anything other than her love and affection.
I know that I she was old, so I can't say " it wasn't her time" or " it's just not right". I'm Pagan enough to know that those things aren't true. She was tired and aged. She'd lived 90 amazing years. She rode by wagon to hear her first radio, bore seven children, and was educated. She's a part of the circle of life and as the crone has passed, mother becomes crone, and daughter becomes mother even if not in physiological senses. My children are Art, stories, and songs rather than living breathing human children. I think she sort of saw me as living out the creative life of my dreams.
None of that will bring her back. People have pulled me aside and said weird things like: "well, feel better" and "You were her favorite". I happen to know my cousin is not chopped liver. She meant so much to me that I can't even express adequately the loss that aches my belly and clenches my heart.
I am not a thief, and most of my family understood that. In moments of her own grief I think she probably knows that too. Owie.
To the only woman I've ever know to have put over 1million miles on her pick up truck, descendant of the inventor of the Ferris wheel. I loved you mother of my mother. Happy mother's day.