Courageous, sassy and well-spoken

Several people have told me that I am a Baldwin through and through, despite my olive skin and tendency to talk with my hands. It has only been in recent years that I realized I have “Harvey-isms” – quick wit, clever responses, an offbeat sense of humor. But I have always known I’m like my grandmother. I have been writing, writing and writing since I could hold a pen, and every time I had a new story to tell anyone, I’d hear, “Oh, she gets that from her grandmother.”

Anyone who knows her knows she was a storyteller. She still remembers her father as "a giant of a man, six foot three, with the broadest shoulders you've seen." And she can still tell you about the time she was attending Catholic school at age 6, and how her mother yelled at the wretched nun who hit my grandmother with a ruler. Age 6? I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday and she remembers 86 years ago.

People joked that Grandma and I were a perfect match because I listened to her stories in total awe every single time, no matter how often she repeated them. But I think I speak for everyone here when I say we will miss the stories. The silence that replaces them now is heart wrenching. The ending to her story was a sad one – but rarely did Grandma end her stories with “happily ever after.” That wasn’t her style.

But the silence does not stand a chance against the most powerful weapons against death and loss: Legacy. She has left us a legacy of memory, of human experience, of all the little anecdotes that make our lives complicated and beautiful. You will be in your kitchen one holiday, frantically trying to prepare dinner, and you’ll remember the story Anne told you about the time that she had to pluck, clean and cook a turkey in the late hours of Christmas Eve. You will always laugh when you reach a Certain Age and think of Anne, who used the line “It’s not like I’m 90!” until it could no longer apply.

And her legacy goes beyond the written word. It was in her patience (take one look at her grandchildren and you’ll get it), her warmth and her almost-famous sense of decorum. She would probably take offense to the word “Old,” but to me, she embodied old-world charm. She was always impeccably and stylishly dressed and always offered a place to sit and something to eat when you came to call, even when only rice cakes were on the menu. And, of course, she always had a story to share.

To this day I sometimes still cannot believe I inherited a talent that became the very core of who I am – a writer. My grandmother was the woman who taught me how to tell a story. I cannot thank her enough for that. There is a part of me who feels as though I’ve lost my biggest inspiration, but I still have her legacy.

Whether we're writers or not, we can all learn from her example: never be afraid to express yourself. I believe she would want us to speak from that place in your heart where you are most yourself. Speak directly, simply, honestly. Don’t be afraid to speak with a little sass and without any apologies. Tell us what you see and want us to see; tell us what you hear and want us to hear. Trust your own heart. The words will come.

That's the way we get by

Illness, death, loss. They get inside of your head and seep into your soul. They bring out levels of raw emotions – anger, sadness, despair, denial – that you didn't think you were capable of feeling. Death shakes you; it turns you inside out. It is ruthless, it is merciless and it wants to wreck you, and rarely do we know exactly when and how.

For those of us living and breathing who experience the death of a loved one, the opposite of loss becomes cope. The way we get by.

I've learned more about cope in the last 48 hours than I thought was possible to know. I've learned it can be synonymous with strength and desperation all in the same day.

Coping...the way we get by. It can be simple: Some people cry too much. Others don't at all. There are those who use humor as a weapon against sadness, and some who use the contents of a bottle of wine.

Sometimes coping goes far deeper. Some of us watch helplessly as everything shatters or begin to self-destruct, putting everything that is good in their life in harm's way.

I used most, if not all, of those coping mechanisms this weekend, but I am not here to blog about my indiscretions right now. Maybe one day I'll come to terms with the way I cope. What happened in the last 48 hours is a story too raw and too real to be ignored. I'll do my best to edit myself out.

With my grandmother's condition rapidly worsening – she had been moved to hospice - our parents, mid-family-barbecue, calmly let my sister and I know they'd be going up to Boston early the following morning. Lauren instantly jumped aboard. It took about an hour for me to realize what Lauren already knew: Mom needed her wolfpack. It wasn't going to be a fun trip, but we could sure as hell make an attempt for it.

Trying to have a last bit of fun, I stayed out far too late, drowned my sorrows in gin, overslept and finally hurried to the house, bewildered, half an hour late. In four hours, thanks to Lauren's superb driving, we arrived. There was no time to wrap my head around how quickly we made it; there was too much to be done.

The visit was harder than I had anticipated. She was waking up from the cocktail of painkillers, so she was completely disoriented. She had wasted away – a plump middle replaced with chicken legs and a wedding ring rattling around her bony finger. A vast departure from our visit in February.

She managed to speak, but it's barely understandable anymore, thanks to the tumor that chokes her voice. Because being in a hospice is apparently not enough of a punishment. All she said was “I don't understand how this could happen to me.”

I have never been filled with more anger and sadness in that moment. I could not give her the answer she deserved. The terminally ill are the terminally condemned. I do not care how often someone tells me that my grandmother wasn't in pain that day. Pain is deeper than the physical hurt. My grandmother, who could hardly move, could hardly speak and barely knew where she was, was in mental agony.

In a not so brilliant move, my sister and I later took our frustration out on gigantic dishes of ice cream at Cabot's. Knock, knock; who's there? Emotional eating, that's who! Coping tastes especially good with peanut butter candy crumbled on top. Still, no amount of dairy could prepare us for the task of emptying out grandma's apartment.

I'd like to think we coped with this task far better than anything else. It became a fun treasure hunt. My mother discovered a thought-to-be-lost wedding ring; I took home a ledger that's filled with grandma's one big legacy - her stories. There was one person who did not take this well: my aunt.

It would later prove to be a hilarious moment on her 4th phone call to my mom. As Leslie, in a total state of denial, begged my mother not to throw anything away, claiming Grandma would come back from this, my father, sister and I had already bagged up 80% of the room. “Maybe I should take pictures before you start,” Leslie offered, and Mom could only awkwardly survey our progress and respond with “Uhhh... well.....”

The rest of the weekend was a strange, surreal blur of laughter, tears, hilarity, drunkenness and angst, all held together by strength. I may not be proud of how I cope, but I am proud of my ability to rise to the occasion and step up to the plate. I learned it from my parents' example. Sometimes, you gotta do what you've gotta do.

And that's the way I get by.