I’ve had a really rough couple of days. Screaming, crying, can-barely-get-out-of-bed kinda rough. I have no idea if it was the heavy (albeit breakthrough) session I had with my life coach the other day, my fight with B-Dizzle over the weekend, my very unpredictable PMS, the full moon, or a combination of all of them—or perhaps none of them—but I have been seriously off my rocker. Like OFF. MY. ROCKER. So needless to say, I was not stoked about my 10am appointment yesterday with the Mount Vernon funeral home to pick out my grandmother’s headstone. Kill me now. (Bad joke. I’m vulnerable—don’t judge me!)
My grandmother was the biggest badass on the planet. She drank like a fish, was sharp as a tack and had the most spot-on sarcastic sense of humor. She was racist as f*ck and couldn’t hear for sh*t, but I loved her so dang much. And I miss her like crazy. You see, she was supposed to live to be 100, and she would be the first to tell you so. My dad read some article in the paper many moons ago (I think she was around 80 at the time) that gave her some pretty good odds, so she decided it was a fact. She would live to be 100 and no one could tell her otherwise. And I believed her. I think we all did. She was a bigger lady and had many surgeries for things like hip replacements, and probably had more metal in her body than Johnny Five. (I have a feeling I just completely dated myself.) But overall, her health had been pretty solid. Until one day…it wasn’t.
In June of last year she was taken to the hospital for feeling incredibly weak, and she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It had spread to her liver and they gave her three months to live. Within a week she was gone. Grandma Sara died a total badass at 91-years-old. We were all shocked and absolutely devastated. I thank God often that I made the at-that-time-very-tough decision to take off work for a couple of days when we saw her health declining fast, days that I didn’t know at the time would be her last. I don’t know if I would have ever forgiven myself had I chosen instead to be “responsible” and go into work. I remember having serious anxiety about missing three days.
I didn’t spend nearly enough time with her when she was here. After all, we were supposed to have nine more years together. Thankfully she moved in with my parents quite a few years ago, so I got to see her pretty regularly. However, quite often I just popped in her room to say hey and chatted with her for a mere few minutes at a time. I was tired from work and it was exhausting to have to speak so loudly. But we did go on semi-annual dinner dates with corsages and boutonnieres—the whole shebang. Always the same restaurant and always the same menu: fresh-from-the-ocean-or-not-at-all oysters, mussels and martinis with garlic-stuffed olives. They didn’t actually carry garlic-stuffed olives, so the waiter would personally stuff garlic cloves in green olives for her martinis every single time. She was such a flirt.
I canceled our last dinner together before she passed away. The funny thing is, I can’t even remember why I canceled—I was probably tired from work again—but I will never stop wishing that I didn’t. I would give anything to be sitting across the table from her as we cause another scene in the restaurant because I have to yell so loudly for her to actually hear me. She thought hearing aid batteries were too expensive so she refused to change hers regularly. Hearing aid batteries are 50 cents each. Did I mention she was stingy? She was so freaking stingy, that woman. FUCK I MISS HER.
I have been in Washington since October and I haven’t been to her gravesite once. Why? I don’t know. I think it feels like it’s too late or something. Like I missed my chance. But is it ever too late? I don’t know that either.
I am reading a book called Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes, creator of Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, etc., and in the book she shares her 2014 Dartmouth commencement speech. The whole book is about her personal transformation during that year, so this was a big breakthrough moment for her. (The jury is still out on the book, BTW. Will report back!) During her speech she mentioned that she often gets asked how she does it all—juggling being a mom, multiple jobs, etc.—and she normally gives a BS answer about being super organized or having a lot of help. But this time she says she wants to get real with us. How does she do it all? “I don’t,” she says with a fierce sincerity. When she is absolutely killing it at work, she is missing out on story time with her kids. When she makes her daughter’s recital, she isn’t there for Sandra Oh’s last episode of Grey’s Anatomy. We can’t do it all, she says. And I absolutely love that she admits that, because I have to agree. I think it comes down to this: choices. When your time is up—unexpectedly or not—will you be happy with the choices you made when you thought you had more time? If I died tomorrow…again, I don’t really know.
I absolutely love traveling. Like a weird/spooky/obsessive love. I’ve taken years off work to spend with my backpack and a bunch of beautiful strangers, but every single time I made the decision, I always had the biggest fear of what it would look like on my résumé. That I would look flakey, unreliable. You want to know what I have been asked the most about in job interviews? “Tell me about Central America!” Or, “Oh wow; India! What was that like?!” And my boss now? She never even asked me for a résumé. She said she hired me for who I am and not what I’ve done. I sure wish I had traveled a lot more. Ohhhh but that résumé…
We are faced with choices both big and small every single day. And a lot of little choices can lead to a big mistake if we aren’t careful. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to wake up one day and realize that I worked more hours in overtime than I did traveling the world. Of course, traveling is just an example in my own life, but we all have our own story, our own “résumé” of experiences of playing it safe, living in fear, or just having our priorities completely out of whack. When in doubt? I say choose love. Whether it’s your love for travel, love for your family, love for your job, love for movie theater popcorn—I don’t care—just choose LOVE. (I will always eat movie theater popcorn and you can’t stop me!) At the risk of sounding like a total cliché, life is short. So choose love. I sure wish I did. I want that dinner date back so badly…and about 100,000 more.
So back to my earlier question…is it too late? Now that I think about it, I don’t think it’s ever too late. As I was driving home from the funeral home, I looked out the window and up at the clouds. They took my breath away. They were this insanely bright white and the lines were so sharp and clean and 3-D. It was almost as if they were solid foam masses rather than light, airy clouds. And it was the most gorgeous winter Washington day we’ve had in a long time. I was stunned. And then I saw it. No, I felt it. Grandma Sara was up there. In those clouds. Probably drinking martinis and being showered with garlic-stuffed olives, but she was up there. It’s never too late, I thought. So right then, I made the commitment to visit her gravesite every single week as long as I am up here. Every Sunday after church. Because it’s never too late. It just can’t be.
So maybe take a moment today and look up at the clouds. What do you see? Where in your own life is love taking a backseat? Where could your choices use a little tweaking? Because trust me, you do not want to miss that dinner.
Choices, Résumés & Garlic-stuffed Olives
