A story about my Grandmother

My grandmother died about two weeks ago.

This world we live in is made of atoms, light, and the space between it all.

When I was little, whenever I’d see my grandmother, she’d bring a poppyseed cake from a local bakery. This dark orange crust, and a light color inside with specks of gray, and hardened white frosting on top.

In school I was taught that you’re supposed to refer to events in stories with the present tense. There’s no temporal frame of reference for a book. Every moment is happening simultaneously, and you can jump from one to another on a whim. The hero is resisting the call of adventure, watching as their mentor lies dying, and standing triumphantly over the evil that has pursued them throughout the narrative. Every story beat is happening right now, and none have come to pass, yet each requires the preceding to exist.

I remember getting in the back of the car as a kid and my mom driving us to my grandmother’s. Up the steps to her apartment, I remember the wooden owl that sat on a square table besides the couch. It had a heart shape carved into its chest. Slats of wood could be pushed out from the center; I think they were coasters.

What is the world besides a possible configuration of matter? Energy taking form. Nothing more. No supernatural anima, we’re all just bundles of motion.

Memories are just stories, of a sort.

I remember pressing silly putty into the newspaper and seeing how it pulled the ink off, slightly hugging the contours of the print. Waiting for a veteran’s day parade to start. Waiting in the living room of my Grandmother’s apartment. They’d throw candy at us from cars passing in the parade.

The ending is just a page turn away.

If I got up and walked away from my computer it would still exist. A distance of space does not preclude something from existing. And the universe is made up of dimensions of space, but there is also an axis known as time. Every second that passes moves me away from the slice of time I currently inhabit. It’s like getting up and walking away from my computer. The computer still exists. The past does too. All that’s changed is the position.

The story of me and my grandmother is over. I’ll have to say hello through photographs now. Or other people’s memories.

When I was little we had this large plaything made of wood. You could put it down and it would become a set of stairs. Flip it over and it was a rocking boat. Put it on its side and it became a narrow table. Once I set up a camera and chair and sat on my grandmother’s lap and we filmed a make-believe news show. We used the wood plaything as a desk. I think I elbowed her by mistake, or something to that effect, and she let out a yelp. I remember watching the video back on our TV upstairs, and us all laughing at the funny noise she made.

I can always walk back to my computer. I can’t walk back through time.

When I was little we would go to her apartment and see the parades. They’d throw candy at the crowds. I liked the multicolored tootsie rolls. They tasted like sugar and imaginary fruit.

One day I’ll forget everything about her. Those moments are still out there, but like toys and knickknacks I’ve misplaced they will be lost to me. 

Sometimes I’d play with her jewelry. She didn’t like the feeling of earrings that used piercings, so all of hers would clasp on instead. I remember the afternoon darkness of her kitchen, the sun not far gone enough to warrant putting the lights on.

Every second that passes moves me away from her. Like the drive back after a parade. 

The universe is just particles dancing through spacetime. What we call experience is simply the observation of one facet of this incomprehensible multidimensional shape we call reality. And I think lots of people find this terrifying. But there is beauty in the absurd truth of our world. Somewhere across space and time my grandmother is laughing. 

She’s still out there, even though I’ll never be able to reach her. The memories I’m trying to hold onto still exist, and are playing out immemorial.

I think I can live with that.

The end.