Zombie Grandma

Around the time our mother left, when I was about eight years old, my Great Gramma Felita died.  I had been spending the night at my best friend’s house, across the street from my own, and was unable to sleep.  At almost midnight I laid in the bottom bunk in Leslie’s room and sobbed, for reasons I couldn’t explain.  Leslie climbed down and sat next to me, holding my hand.  “Don’t cry, KB, ” she whispered, “It might be better this way.  My parents should get a divorce, and won’t, and look how miserable we all are”.  Her family was, indeed, miserable, for reasons I will explore on another page, at another time.  But, it wasn’t my mother leaving  (though I was devastated by her eager departure), and it wasn’t the familiar sadness that drifted throughout Leslie’s house that made me weep.  There was something else I didn’t understand;  something had happened, far away, and I felt the pain of many people all at once.  And relief.  And shame at the relief.  Leslie hugged me and tried to be of comfort, but there was nothing she could do.  She called my house, and my sister, Michelle, met us at the end of our driveway.  We watched Leslie return home, and Michelle took me to her basement bedroom to sleep with her. She had returned home from college to help our dad, and me and our sister, Anne adjust to mom being gone.   “Do you miss Mom?” she asked.  I did, but couldn’t explain that that wasn’t the source of my tears.  “I just feel…a lot of sadness,” I tried to begin.  “Well, you should know that Great Gramma Felita died today,” she told me, “We’re going to Canada this weekend for the funeral.  Mom will be going with us, so you’ll be able to spend some time with her during the trip”.

I sighed, and closed my eyes.  I could see the faces of my Great Aunts and Uncles in Quebec.  My Gramma’s brothers and their wives.  Each was downcast, tear stained.  There was an immense pressure in my chest, as though my heart would rupture.  I remember my mouth beginning to quiver as I, once again, became overwhelmed with emotions I couldn’t account for.

I barely knew Great Gramma, and, in honesty, I was terrified of her.  She had suffered a stroke, I don’t know when, and it left her partially paralyzed.  French was the only language she spoke, and though I could understand it from a very early age, hers, because of the paralysis, was distorted and incomprehensible to my novice ears.  She sat, every time I saw her, in a wheelchair, buried in at least a thousand afghans.  Her soft, white hair hung neatly down her back, and someone was always nearby to wipe with a cotton handkerchief the drool from her stubbly chin.  Her skin was china white, and soft, like the skin of a peach.  When I stood next to her, and she reached out to me,  speaking in her mad babbling way, the light that shone in her eyes took on a wildness I didn’t understand.  No one had explained what had happened to her.  I had just always thought that she was the first “Crazy Person” I had ever met.

I didn’t know that the light in her eyes was love.

That Friday night we drove to Quebec, and I can’t describe the trip…I think I slept through most of it.  We stayed with my Aunt Monique and Uncle Leon, always a treat, as I adored my French Canadian cousins, all much older than me except Baby Jean Francois, who, like me, had been an unexpected arrival in the family. I remember his dimpled face,  over which his curly brown hair tumbled as he trotted around the den of the warm cobblestone cottage.   My Aunt and Uncle’s home always made me feel…well…at home.

The wake was the next morning.  At eight years old I had never attended a wake, a funeral, I had never seen a corpse save in “Night of the Living Dead”, a movie my sisters had forced me to watch and then after-wards chased me around the house threatening to eat my brains.  There were family squeezed into the tiny country funeral home that I had never met, and each had fingers ready to pinch my cheeks as introductions were made.  The room was warm, dimly lit, and smelled of heavy perfume.  At one point my mother told me to go to the casket and kneel beside my Great Gramma and say a prayer.  I remember the look of horror I gave her as I clung to her skirt.  Go kneel next to a dead woman who in life scared the hell out of me?  And do it alone?  Was she insane?!  But the flash of emerald in her eye that I learned to avoid told me that she was, in her estimation, sane, and serious.  I went, and knelt, and, with one eye open and fixed on the preserved hands enclosing a beautiful green rosary, quickly said a prayer, asking God to take care of this woman, no matter how crazy she might have been.

The funeral was the next day, but, for some reason, I wasn’t allowed to go.  I stayed behind at my Aunt and Uncle’s house with…I don’t actually remember who….

That night became the first in which I would be haunted by a recurring nightmare throughout most of my childhood…

We were at the wake, me, my family, my extended family.  But the funeral home was replaced by my Gramma’s  (daughter of the deceased) camper in which I spent most of my summers at a campground near our home.  The small space was expanded in my dream, somehow accommodating all of the visitors, and Great Gramma’s casket was placed across from the door, where the kitchen would have been in waking hours.  I was kneeling on the bumper next to the casket as the guests all seemed to leave the camper through the door behind me.   I closed my eyes and began to pray.  “Dear God,” I heard my voice, “Please bless Great Gramma Felita, and take her to heaven to be with you.  Maybe you could help her walk again, and speak clearly so the angels can understand her…”

Mid-sentence I felt a hand on mine, and I opened my eyes to the horror my young imagination had dreaded from the start:  Great Grandma was sitting upright, leaning toward me and clutching my hands.  The wide, wild smile on her face seemed to mock my terror as she babbled and pulled my arms towards her, toward the coffin. Suddenly she spoke clearly, in French. “N’ayez pas peur! La mort n’est pas effrayant! C’est paisible, un nouveau départ. La vie ne s’arrête pas avec la mort .”  But I still didn’t understand.  My French was still developing, and my fear was blocking any comprehension.  I just knew that the Crazy Scary Gramma Lady was trying to pull me into her coffin.

I screamed for my mother.  I broke one arm free and reached for the screen door behind me.  I could hear my mother banging on the door.  “The door opens OUT, mom!  Pull the door OUT!  Stop pushing it IN!  Pull the door open and help me!”

But she was helpless herself, and couldn’t save me.  I turned back to the woman who, despite her age, her paralysis, and being dead, was amazingly strong.  “Please let me go!”  I cried, “Lâchez-moi!  S’il vous plaît, grand-mère, lâchez-moi!” I pulled and pulled away, and finally, in sudden silence, she let go.  She sat, adjusted the cushion in her casket, and said, “N’ayez pas peur, petite, n’aie pas peur. La vie peut être effrayant, mais vous êtes forts. Vous trouverez la paix et être heureux. “.  I barely heard her words as I bolted from the camper to find my mother, who had apparently forgotten that her youngest daughter was battling for her life twenty feet away with the corpse of their zombie grandmother.  She drew on a cigarette,  chatting with an Uncle and laughing her shrilly high pitched laugh that she thought made her appear young and free spirited.

From the moment I first awoke from that dream, I’ve always hated that laugh.

The Zombie Grandma dream recurred over and over until I was about 19, at which point the Alien dreams began.  It was replayed so many times that I memorized the words she spoke to me in clear French.  So relieved was I to finally be rid of the dreams that I never stopped to consider any message it might have had.  But recently, since beginning this blog, I recalled it to my waking mind, and translated her message.

Do not be afraid! Death is not scary.  It’s peaceful, a fresh start.  Life does not end with death. …. Do not be afraid, little one, have no fear. Life can be scary, but you are strong. You will find peace and be happy.