Pop

There's something I believe deserves acknowledgment. This past Tuesday marked a year since my grandfather, Pop, had quadruple bypass surgery following a heart attack he suffered while caring for Nana. This is a man who, until about this time last year, spent each and every day of the past few years caring for my dying grandmother. As she drifted away, he did all in his power to keep her near, to maintain her lifestyle and her dignity. He refused to put her in a nursing home. When it was suggested that he purchase a hospital bed for his own ease in caring for her, he refused; he wasn't about to stop sleeping next to his wife after sixty years lying side-by-side.

As I write this, I have the end of She's Having a Baby playing in the background. (Seriously, you need to see this movie.) This shouldn't give anything away...I've just come to the part where "This Woman's Work" plays over a montage of the couple's early married years. It makes my heart ache. This is how I imagine my grandparents, except in the 1950s (and I actually think it's pretty close to the first years of my own parents' marriage). I love it.

Anyway, early one morning, Pope woke up to turn Nana, as he did several times each night. He was short of breath, but he got back in bed and went to sleep. We're talking about an eighty-four-year-old man doing all of the labor involved in caring for an adult who could walk...who could not even adjust herself while seated. It was hard, hard work.

But he kept with it. He's loyal. He loved her...he still loves her. And, oh, how he misses her. I think he always thought he'd go first, but he didn't. He's here with us and a new lifestyle is taking shape. This is how I would sum up the past year in a few words:

Fear.

Grief.

Joy.

Love.

Life. So much life.

Crumbs

Not much time has passed since I last posted...and with so little to say. Words flow freely in my mind, elegant and witty, pleading to be placed on the page, but when my fingers hit the keys, that which only moments before seemed so eloquent, has vanished. It is quite unfortunate.

I have returned so quickly to offer some explanation for the peculiar title of this blog. It is quite peculiar, is it not?

Let me begin by noting that I seek meaning. I love when seemingly independent elements are found to be woven together, ever so intricately. This is my life right now...seeking the stitches.

All this to say that the title of this blog is not at all random...not in the slightest. And yes, it holds far greater meaning to me than the act of feeding ducks, however deliciously whimsical that very act might be.

My grandmother, Nana, passed away this past summer. It is the strangest sensation to lose someone. It is nearly indescribable. As I work through the mourning process (which seems only to have just begun), I find myself yearning to find remnants of Nana in my life...crumbs.

I sat on my bed this afternoon, legs crossed, having somewhat spontaneously decided to begin a blog, but with absolutely no clue of what to name it (or what to write about). I could not bear the thought of titling it rashly, with no consideration of significance. Surveying my room, I sought something that might yield a meaningful title and found nothing. A "Breakfast at Tiffany's" poster, a jumble of clothes on the floor, a vase of yellow daisies...

Then it came to me; suddenly and for no apparent reason. Nana. A glimpse of a moment we shared when I was only a few feet tall and nearly bald, because my curls hadn't grown in yet. There we stood, in the backyard of my grandparents' beach house, overlooking a narrow canal. Nana was still round then, wearing shorts and a long white t-shirt, chunky gold earrings, and her long, delicate gold chain. We tore slices of bread into beak-sized pieces and threw them to the ducks gathering nearby. (Apparently you aren't supposed to do that anymore, but it made for great memories back when it was entirely innocent.)

I smile when I think of that. I smile when I think of her. Of course, there's always that twinge of pain...that hollow in my chest feels all the more vacant whenever I reminisce. I hear that such wounds heal; that the emptiness fills with the joy of moment once shared.

The joy of feeding crumbs to ducks.