Grieving & Missing the Streetcar
Under the rhythm of living, there is the rhythm of dying.
Princess Street is a frigid wind tunnel, my leather loafers dig into my heels and the streetcar is turning King Street East’s bend. I have a minute to jaywalk to the north side where a sliver of white sun illuminates my stop. Otherwise, I’m set back an entire four minutes. Tragedy.
Holding my breath, I put all thought into reaching my destination. Releasing it with the pang of the $3.30 being taken from my Presto card. Ready to slouch into the left-hand seat in the very last car. Hold your breath. Release it. Work. Hold your breath. Release it. Sleep.
Under the rhythm of living, there is the rhythm of dying. There are wills being read and burial wishes. There are funerals and processions. There are heirlooms to inherit and there is blue silence. There is holding my breath, until I can release for this gentle moment; the stone buildings sliding by and that steady beat of grief.
I lost both of my Grandmothers within 9 months of each other. I’ve lived over 3,000 km from my family throughout the majority of my life since 18. I know endings where the calamity is yours alone. There is no one in front of you that knows them.
You have solace in voices, condolences across screens, and empathetic stares. Nothing stops. Living and dying are synonymous. The living and the dying are synonymous. You go on.
My Nana, Sheila Cashion, was 92. There had been brushes, but it wasn’t until she was surrounded by her heart: her four children, did she slip softly away. I always have thoughts of her letting go of the hands here to extend for my Papa’s; finally within reach again.
It was 15 days before Christmas. In Ubers between events, before dinners and after re-applying red lipstick, is when news floated from West to East. Until finally, amidst the hosting of my own party, I turned my phone over to see:
“My dear mama just passed”
I turned the phone over. I wore an eyelet cotton white dress. We sat on the floor. Living room aglow from the Christmas tree’s rainbow lights. We ate soft cheese and drank cider. I laughed. The room was warm and bright and loud. Everyone left in colourful paper crowns. I didn’t tell anyone. This was mine.
Methodically moving dishes to the kitchen. Clearing the table and rounding the party’s clutter. I stood at the sink to run warm water over the wine glasses. At that stage it isn’t grief, it is something much more violent. The violence of living. Alone, that violence is yours. In silent retaliation, I put away every dish and I sorted every moved item. I gathered each candle and placed them on the living room table; the heart of the gathering just minutes before. I cried.
Christmases were always the hardest time of the year for her after my Papa passed in 2012. She was ready. The living are never ready. I started a new job two days later. My sister texted me from the wake. In my room, I watched the funeral procession on the Parish’s livestream. Here alone, I wore black. As it concluded I sent hearts in the live messaging. Then I clocked back in to finish off the week. Living and dying.
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That summer, I read “The Year of Magical Thinking.” I finished the novel on a hot and humid day, taking up a wooden bench outside an university building off of St Joseph Street. It is quiet besides the cities’ hums, with no students having returned yet. I am drawn to Didion’s writing cadence. How she details the final months of her late husband: direct, with reaction.
| “You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” (Didion, 2005)
I awoke to the soft white sun and life as I knew it ended. September 17th, the summer was waning. Missed call from my Dad. It was 4:00AM on the West Coast. “It happened so quick.” The only thing I had to offer through chokes. It didn’t really happen quickly, did it? We are living as we are dying.
My Grandma, June Vosburgh (née Nygaard,) was 88. I have her hooked nose. I have her name. I have her iron tongue. I awoke to the soft white sun and my heart broke. I swear I heard the snap echo off the buildings of my street. I think I opened the blinds. I know I cried.
There was no definition to the following days. There was a finality. And there was pain. My chest burned and my head pounded. I was angry. I deserved more time. I was planning to visit her in December. I deserved that. I let myself be selfish. I thought about the ‘7 Stages of Grief’ being right. I got angrier.
Alone, in my room, I opened Facebook to post for the first time in years. Dozens of words from names I did not know, but who knew her, came in. I stared at photos. I called my sister. I closed the blinds. I cried.
“If I could have it my way, we’d have a million more walks together. Under the pines, up the back road, walking sticks in hand. Right now, that is where my heart is.”
My Dad’s family is from a small town tucked in a valley between soaring peaks and the Pacific: Bella Coola. One road in, one road out. My Grandma June lived there her entire life. The family home, a butter yellow bungalow, with an unlocked door and silver coffee pot on the stove. Minutes from the Hagensborg Cemetery, in which generations of our family are interred. There, my name precedes me. There, her legacy precedes me. Here, I bore witness to a life intertwined with a thousand upbringings.
As the Valley gathered, the 504 glided past. They approached the simple cemetery in pickups, I increased my pace. My Dad, Uncles and Cousin moved casket from truck bed to earth, my soles smacked concrete. They stood, I ran. A town filed into the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 262, I scraped my bag for the office keys. Framed pictures were placed around a small table displaying her prized possessions: a tattered Sudoku book and her chainsaw. I sat down to start my day. I didn’t tell anyone. This was mine.
My Grandma June waited on no one and no thing. She was ready. The living are never ready. I visited in December. My Dad parked his red pickup at the cemetery’s wooden fence. I knelt down in the blue silence. I cried.
It was her birthday this past Sunday.
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I have made privileged sacrifices, but sacrifices all the same. Privileged sacrifices to leave the place I was raised and live the life I sought. My sentence is to lament my woes to the street lights. To go, and go, and go. To face mortality at the intersection by my building that I must always pause at. Living and dying. Red lights on black pavement and hot tears. Hold your breath. Green floods the crossing. Release. The Matriarch moved generations and I have an email to finish.
