The capacity to cry

Steven called me a little earlier today. Told me to go pick up my grandmother. She was on the floor crying. She didn't want my parents to know. Is she ashamed, or embarrassed, or scared? I'm not really sure which emotion motivated her to shun my parents' help, albeit temporarily, but regardless, I went upstairs to help.

She was on the floor in a kind of half sitting half lying down posture. I think it took all her strength to get that far upright. She was holding the phone. It was making that constant "beep beep" noise of a receiver too long off its cradle. I feel like I haven't heard that noise in ages, since cell phones lack it. She was crying, lightly. I took the phone from her hand and replaced it on the base. I lifted her up and placed her on the bed. She cried harder when I helped her. She said something, said a lot of things, and a lot I had to help her finish with. Words on the tip of her tongue. I could guess from context until she nodded in affirmation. I helped her pull her clothes on correctly, got her under a blanket, and held her in the bed. It sounds cliche, but that scene from the book we all had as kids. "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch. The scene at the end.

One thing I could make out clearly. She said to me, through tears, "I just wanna die." Something is so heartbreaking about your first grandchild helping you dress and cradling you, that she cried harder. I understand that distress. I cannot fathom it in feeling, but I understand it.

Her bones are brittle and break often. Her muscles are weak. Her skin is too pliable. Nerve damage from an old surgery robbed her of some nerve connections, so her weakened state is brought to further levels of immobility. She's having trouble finding words and names. But despite everything that is failing or has already failed, her eyes are wise and witty and alive and delicate. And she can cry with the strength of anyone on earth. It is cruel that we can continue to cry, even after we cannot remember why were doing it anymore.

To Whom It May Concern

Today there was some...unpleasantness. I'm not going to talk about it in detail, because I have been wisely advised not to. However, I do feel the need to set certain things straight.

There was never a time in my life where I have been happy that Katie Keenan was unhappy. It's true that I ended it, and at the time I thought I had done the right thing, for both of us, and in time I came to regret the decision. Were you to ask anyone in my life how I was at the time, I wasn't exactly jubilant about the entire situation. In fact, I was cutting, I was crying constantly, and I was borderline suicidal. I came out of it, but months later I still loved her. I never stopped loving her, not for a second. I thought her only chance for happiness was to live without me, and I remained despondent over her...well, until she came back into my life. My closest friend, Darien, urged me to take the shot with her because every time I bitched about being lonely and he gave me some variant of the "plenty of fish in the sea" argument I'd respond with the assertion that I had my one catch, and to compare them to her, I'd reel in nothing but old boots. I know I did wrong. I don't forget for a second that I hurt her, and that I don't deserve her, but she has forgiven me, and we're together, and I don't think I've ever been happier in my life. She's wonderful, she's amazing, she's everything I could ever ask for. She makes life worth living. I haven't forgiven myself for being such a fool, but she has. Part of me still hates myself for ever dreaming to cause her pain. Part of me always will, probably. But she's forgiven me. My one treasure in life, my Lois Lane, my Gwen Stacy, my Black Canary, my Linda Park, my Carol Ferris, you name it. She's let me back into her life, and whether or not people hate me for loving her, or hate me for being with her, or hate me for just being alive, I'm never, ever, going to stop loving her for a second. I loved her when I met her, I loved her when I was a stupid child and proposed, I loved her when I ended it, I loved her as she hated me, I loved her when she let me speak to her again, I loved her when I met her again, almost a year later, for coffee. I love her now. I'm never, ever, going to stop loving her. There's nothing in this world that can stop me. So you can hate me, but it won't stop me loving her, not now, not ever.