My grandfather passed away on the twenty-second day of September—the day before my nineteenth birthday and on the first day of fall. The autumnal equinox left a stiffening hand in my palm, gradually suckling daylight and abandoning his favorite pajama shirt in the closet.
Each morning dragged the sun above my window, light creeping bluely beneath my curtains. How odd, I thought, the Earth didn’t notice a difference.
Warm beams seemed to mockingly dance in the front yard. His living room was left folded open, awaiting his return. His pill case was organized for the week, a pen was sandwiched between pages of his puzzle book, and the torn arm of his recliner from the press of his elbow remained.
Before leaving the ICU, a relative grabbed my shoulders and said, “I know you have a million memories rushing through your head right now. Just know, he’s not there anymore,” as she gestured to the hospital bed. She wept, placing a hand on her heart. “He’s here.”
Though in that moment, and for months to come, memories became elusive. It was unfathomable to source from recollections that each day carried me further from. How was it possible I had looked into eyes that no longer existed?
I scoured my mind for his smile with teeth, sifted through voicemails to hear him chuckle, and gazed for hours at pictures of him as a child. He had once stood as tall as I, read a book with his legs crossed, gotten drenched in the rain, caught an insect in a clasped palm, and scratched the cat behind his ears. How sweet mundanity seems when peeking in from outside of its boundaries.
I wanted to know what he was thinking in his final days, if he was terrified or at peace. I wondered what his favorite time of day was, his hobby as a young boy, and which lamp he preferred in the evenings. With his final breath, the things only he knew became eternally inaccessible.
I used to believe that a large sum of identity must be credited to what we leave suspended in the minds of those we love. But I have come to realize the majority of ordinary existence is experienced alone. From the unlikely mementos tucked away in cupboards, pocketed grocery lists shredded by the washing machine, the volume he sang along to the radio in solitude, the areas of his face he checked closely in the mirror, to the amount of ice he preferred his water—these pieces of him are gone. I imagine these truths strung together in some undiscovered chasm beyond the atmosphere.
A year after his passing, copper colored coffee continues to be stirred in the kitchen, black-eyed peas are still eaten on New Year’s Day, breakfast is dunked in sugar-free syrup, and I smile when I notice freckled eyes.
Earth and its axis await nothing. Chins tilted downward in my direction and the air grew a slow pulse, but the attic light continued flickering, the grass thickened with dew, and I still had to wait through two rounds of traffic lights to turn left onto highway-eleven after midnight.
There was nothing awaiting me on the other side of each moment, no kindling victory or brutal triumph. There was nothing strong enough to counteract the monotony or the pace of passing feet. But every now and then, someone shuffles by in a pair of his favorite Adidas slides.
Strike out,
Lexi Dunn, Writer
