Four Years: Sun and Rain and a Single Dragonfly

It was four years ago today that my grandmother passed away. It's been a lost day, a day I haven't quite been sure what to do with. When my grandfather died in October of 2000 it was the first time I'd lost such a significant member of my family, someone I was so close with, whose blood still runs in my veins. I was lost and my world shifted terribly. Several years later, driving home from work, my grief bubbled up as real and desperate as it had that afternoon when I arrived in Idaho and had been told he was gone. I called my mom and asked her if it ever went away. She told me it gets easier but that sometimes, for no reason at all, it hurts just as much as it ever did. Four years later, still heartbroken over grandpa, I lost my grandmother, and as I suspected, it's a wound that is slow to heal. Even now I struggle when I realize how long it's been since I last heard her voice, how my shoulders miss the feel of her hug. And then there are the silly things I miss, which are almost more difficult to grasp than the big ones, because they are things which are not specific to her, but somehow mean more than any possible recreation ever could. Like her Pall Malls, smoked nearly down to the end, stained with her lipstick and crushed, backs broken, in her ashtray. Or her dill bread, which my mother makes every year for me when I'm home, and even though it's grandma's recipe and just as delicious, isn't hers. Or her flowery but sharp handwriting on letters and cards. I miss them terribly. Beyond words.

But despite the day's solemnity, there was still great beauty, in the heat, the heavy clouds and thunder which shook over us, and the way it managed to rain even as the clouds dissipated, pulling back and revealing the blazing blue heavens above before moving away to the east. It was my favorite kind of rain, when the drops, catching the light of the returning sun, fall from the sky in brilliant and blinding golden sheets and the ground rises up, suddenly green and fresh like it hasn't been in months. There were two men in the park today dancing and playing simultaneously in both the sun and the rain with their Golden, a large, shaggy, blond horse of a dog with enormous paws and a long, heavy coat. He was much larger than Duncan but no less exuberant. They tossed a Frisbee back and forth, low to the ground so the dog could chase between them and under it as it passed just above his head, then leap into the air to grab it, which he did remarkably well. He was a big, grinning, goof, this dog and just standing back and watching them play was enough to rouse me out of the sadness of the day, to turn my face from the last of the refreshing drops, barely falling from the leaves, and into the soothing sunshine. Duncan sat next to me, his tail wagging back and forth across the piles of freshly mowed grass, now clumped in wet heaps around us, looking up at me occasionally to see if I'd take him over to join in the fun. Finally, when the dog tired of playing chase, he simply threw himself into the arms of the closest man, knocking him over and slathering his head and neck with enormous wet kisses, a grin spread wide across his glorious face. The other man joined them and together they rolled and wrestled and took turns being knocked over by their companion, whose tail never once stopped wagging. It was a joyous sight and before we returned home Duncan and I took our turn at playing in the grass under the trees and after we tired we stayed a moment longer, paw to hand, he caught up in his thoughts and me in mine. A heavy, droning dragonfly finally broke our calm as it passed over Duncan's nose and moved across the shade toward the big puddle which had formed in a low place on the sidewalk. I knew that dragonfly and so we followed it until it finally outraced us and vanished into the grass.

The whole scene made me think of a very popular video my mother emailed me recently, which has played in my mind almost constantly since she sent it. It's become quite the sensation lately and I apologize first, for having an awfully video-heavy week, and second, if you've seen it before. It has nothing to do with dogs (quite the opposite actually) but everything to do with wild, unconditional love, the kind that does not end, but survives separation and grief and even time. This is what I'm thinking about tonight and I think you should, too.