This episode is about a time when I was four, and two kids said I was dying and I believed them. More than that, though, it’s about a person who allowed me to be scared and sad and to grieve openly. I missed my grandma. I missed my old life before my grandma died — when my mom and dad and I lived together, and I didn’t spend three nights in one apartment, four nights in another.
I missed my mom when she was happy. I missed mornings at the Jersey Shore with my grandma — my Nanny — the person whose face lit up every time she looked at me, and whose hugs where the best possible place to be. I didn’t know where Heaven was. I couldn’t tell my mom when I was scared or sad because she’d get angry. I was afraid she might decide she couldn’t handle it and leave me at her friend’s farm.
I couldn’t tell my dad how I felt because he’d flip the script and make it about him. He’d sob in my arms which was too much for me to handle at four or five or six or ten — or every year he laid his grownup problems at my feet — until I told him I couldn’t take it anymore. That didn’t happen until I was thirteen. So I stopped telling anyone, until that day when I had a nosebleed and thought I was going to die.
It’s a gift when someone lets you feel however you feel without trying to fix it, and without giving you the feeling that there’s a time limit. When they hold you tightly enough you know it’s safe to fall apart.
