I was thirteen, had just finished eating dinner and was watching TV with my mom. I can still remember the show, Dinosaurs, a sitcom about a family of anthropomorphic dinosaur puppets. In this episode, the oldest son Robbie falls in with a bad crowd at school and gets into trouble, learns a lesson and resets the status quo by the end. Oh, the late eighties... such a golden era of television. We lived in a small farming village north of Edmonton called Radway, across the street from my grandparents, who had my great aunt and uncle over for dinner and drinks that night. My Mom didn't get along with my Aunt Barb (or as we called her "The Duchess"), so we had stayed home.
I was finishing my pierogies and garlic sausage when the door flew open, revealing the wild-eyed and flushed face of The Duchess. To see a woman of her composure askew was rattling. This is the same woman who kept a silver tea set in her house in case the Queen came by for teatime. Her dark hair, streaked with iron grey was coming free from its elastic restraint, an event notable to me then as it was the only time I had ever seen such a thing. Her piercing eyes scanned over the room, taking note of me and dismissing me all at the same time.
"Karen."
See, right there I knew something was off. the full gravitas of the first name was never used by The Duchess. Not in public, and certainly not in front of me,
"It's Charlie. Come quick."
My heart just about flip-flopped through my ribcage. Grandpa's first name too! Shit.
I left the TV spewing its silly catchphrases and meekly followed the adults out into the cloying summer air, trudging across the dusty gravel road and into the lovingly manicured yard of my grandparents. Marigolds, my grandpa's favorite, lined the driveway in raised boxes mixed with pinks and purples from petunia's (Gramma's favorite) scattered amongst the orange blooms. My uncle Russ, the reluctant common man turned Duke, who was truly the largest and kindest man I had ever met stood outside. He stopped me at the door with a gentle, meaty hand. The second we made eye contact, I somehow knew he was being protective, but I was a farm kid. He was a fixture of my youth, ensconced in his comfy armchair at family gatherings, nursing a rye and coke. To see him proactively outside frightened me more than a little bit.
Death was nothing new. It was a thing that happened sometimes, both to farm animals as well as people, the circle of life was no stranger to us. To protect me from it seemed out of place in a world where it was not hidden. I had seen it before. I never saw my grandfather's corpse, but I knew it was there just the same. But that wasn't what my uncle was protecting me from.
He was trying to protect me from hearing my Grandmother.
In my mind, I went to a safer, happier place. I was at a hockey tournament in Bon Accord. I could smell the arena. Grease from the concession fires, the snappy cold scent of the ice, metallic remnants of skate sharpening, ever present smells of sweat and hockey tape. I lead the team in scoring that weekend, scored my first hat trick. My generally stoic grandfather was beside himself, shouting and cheering me on. And he wouldn't be at another game.
I descend from Gaelic roots, my Grandmother told me stories of the 'ban sidhe' (that's banshee for those of you lucky enough to speak the Queen's English). In the tales, they would 'keen', or wail when death was near. Just a word she used when telling the tales of her youth in her Scottish brogue.
She also told me stories of the fae folk, and Lugh the Hunter, but to my teenaged mind, these were only legends and stories similar to the comic books I loved so dearly (still do). Her accent was so thick that until I was four, I wondered why she kept calling me a small bear, or "wee bairn".
It turns out that most legends have a basis in reality.
I heard the keening that night, and I will never forget that sound if I live a hundred lifetimes.
I gave my uncle's hand a squeeze. He let go, nodding in assurance that he would take care of her. An entire conversation passed wordlessly between us in that second, a flash of concern and pain in his eyes that he had never before dared to show me. I didn't recognize the significance of that moment of vulnerability and honesty until decades later. He passed away fifteen years ago, and I miss that man even more now that I'm older, and hopefully wiser.
I ran. Until my legs got tired, I ran. I ran until I could taste copper and my vision blurred, I found I had run across town. I couldn't stop.
I was four years old again. This time watching the World Series with my family. My grandmother was joking and laughing with 'her Charlie', the two of them seemed so relaxed with each other. Again, there had showed a crack in his stoic façade as he had tenderly kissed her cheek. I tasted the grape pop I was drinking at the time, it was suddenly saccharine and nauseating as I recalled it in that moment, empty somehow.
I don't know why I reacted that way. It was as if I just couldn't process that sound of gut-wrenching loss, of rage, or terror. I sat where my legs gave out: on a hill just outside of town, which looked over the pale blue-green grain elevators, with fields of golden canola and wheat stretching into the horizon. The siren lights strobed red down in the distance as the ambulance came for my grandfather.
All I could remember was his face cheering me on as he drove me to countless hockey practices, games and tournaments. This quiet, reserved man, who even at Christmas would give out only the smallest of polite acknowledgements by nodding and saying "Very Good" if he liked the gift, was the loudest one cheering whenever I would score, or to shout encouragement at me before a faceoff. Win or lose, he was there at every game, missing only when he was too sick. The chasm of despair and loss stretched wide before me and I couldn't see the other side in my grief.
It didn't dawn on me that my Mom might be worried about me, maybe because my uncle was there, and I knew he would take care of it. I was angry, I was devastated, I didn't know how to feel or what to do. But, I had been raised to be a good Catholic boy, and if any time was worth a prayer/good chat with The Man Upstairs, this was it. Seemed worth a shot, at least.
"God. It's me. I know you know that. Or you would." My mouth was dry and I was shaking all over. I needed to throw up.
"I know Grandpa was sick, and I know his heart was bad. And that he drank sometimes and smoked sometimes. I know he fought in The War, and you didn't take him then." I stumbled over the words as they fell out of me, as if I had to expel them before they could consume me.
I would like to take this moment to tell you, dear reader, that I did not find God in that moment. I was thirteen and angry. But just speaking the words out loud helped.
"Did you hear her, God?" Her anguished cry still echoed in my mind.
There was, of course, no divine retort, no beam from heaven carrying wisdom and songs from above. The silence was almost overwhelming, I could feel the blood pulsing in my temples and I still felt sick.
"How could you do that to someone?" My voice broken and raw, I asked the only question that mattered.
That had been the sound of ultimate love being lost, of eternal grief... and it had been uniquely human, not at all divine. How long I stayed there and screamed incoherently at a higher power in whom I didn't really believe in anymore, I can't recall. I remember walking back up the street and to the driveway just as the ambulance was pulling away. Grandma's marigold and petunia laden flower boxes greeted me as the streetlights began to flicker on, casting a sickly light over the peeling white paint of the house.
I was again met at the door by my uncle's hulking frame, concern and sadness clear in his wizened eyes. He gave me a single, reassuring pat on my still-shaking shoulder. He knew. Just like I knew somehow that when I showed him I was back and under control, he was safe to go and grieve for a man who had been one of his best friends.
The summer before , while building a new deck my grandfather taught me how to use a miter saw. He was so proud that his "Smart J" could figure out angles and measure properly. Spending the hot days with him now, although they seemed difficult then, were memories he needed me to have. How every time I stepped onto that deck I would come back to that summer. I was starting to understand just how much had changed for all of us, and I hated it.
The doctor was still there. This being small town Alberta, he had made the house call and given my grandma a 'little shot' to help calm her. I made my way in, seeking my grandmother, ready to be her support as she had been mine for so many years. Her eyes, usually so full of fire and humor, seemed dull and flat. She appeared to have lost weight impossibly. When she saw me, she collapsed into my arms, admonishing me for not letting her take care of *me*. That night she stayed in my hug for hours, her hands clawing bloody divots into my palm, all the while insisting that the shot had "Nae doon a'thing" to her tiny, ninety pound frame.
The doctor gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder. My teenaged reflex to push comfort and sympathy away rose mightily as I spun away, murmuring a polite thank you. I carried her up to bed once the family was reasonably sure she was asleep (she really was a wee thing) and I sat there with her in the silent darkness. Looking at this woman who was always so powerful to me in my youth, seeing her as fragile and human had shaken me deeply. Lots of that going around tonight. This was the woman who had helped raise her family through the Great Depression. She worked in munitions factories in WWII and had even taken me in when I was younger, my mother's health perpetuating the situation and had sparked The Great Duchess War. I owed her everything.
I came back downstairs to find The Duchess and my Mom in the kitchen drinking tea, glaring at each other in sullen silence. My mom noticed my hand immediately, I forgot it was bleeding. The Duchess fetched the first aid kit, the two of them working in concert to bandage and iodine me into submission. My uncle sat with me in silence for what seemed like hours. I hadn't even heard him come into the room. After the triage had been applied, my aunt had gone off with my mom to negotiate the terms of a ceasefire, leaving us men alone with our grief.
My uncle poured himself a rye and me a ginger ale. He stopped for a second and looked at me with serious eyes. He slowly poured a splash of rye into my glass and nodded almost imperceptivity at me. The message was clear: To your Grandfather.
He grabbed the remote control (a large and gaudy thing by today's standards), and turned the TV on. As the tube warmed up, we got a few seconds of audio before we got picture, and the bombastic, preachy voice of Jim Bakker reached out emphatically at us, Undoubtedly, only OUR five dollar donation could bring all of us closer to Jesus!
Without missing a beat, my uncle shut it off, turned to me and said, "I hate that fucking guy."
It's five years later now, and I'm packing my grandma's red Toyota Tercel to move into Edmonton after graduation. She leans into me as I hug her goodbye, as I struggle to find the words to thank her for everything she's meant to me. She's a little grayer in the hair, but her eyes are once more full of fire and love. While enfolding her in as gentle a hug as I could muster she whispered up to me, "I love ye, boy of mine. Ye're a good lad."
I draw a shaky breath (I'm a man now, dammit, I won't cry!) and try not to squeeze her too fiercely, but I don't want to let go. I do, as my uncle waves at me from the driver's seat to take all the time I need. I heard her laugh as I make a joke about missing her, a laugh which was the antithesis to her keening which had brought so much pain with enlightenment and wisdom. She followed her Charlie only a year later, and I had yet more to learn in her passing. We all make the keening in our own way, when our hearts bleed to heal.