The Stan Space

I've been trying to cry for three days. Emotionally constipated with worry, sleepless nights and far too many to-do’s; my elusive tears have left me gasping for breath, restlessly aching for that leg-up, pacing around in circles looking for more time, understanding and patience. But at last, a phone call to my Gran was the catalyst that launched my resistant tears.

Gran’s 92 year old boyfriend, Stan, passed away this morning. 92! As I reached out across the phone line, Gran reached back with a tired and trembling 88 year old voice, reassuring me that she would be ok.

 With a smile summoned from her Grandmotherly reserves she reminded me that Stan had lived a full and long life. She comforted me when I told her that I felt so sorry for her pain.

 “I don’t know what to say, Gran. I’m so sorry for your heartache.”  It was weak, but honest. 

 “What can I do? I wish I could stay the night with you.” I pleaded from three states away.

“You are so, so dear, you sweet Angel.” Through her stoic, sad face she reassured me until I stopped crying. And I’d never even met dear Stan. Even in the spotlight of her own grief, Gran was lovingly comforting someone else.

 “Who was it that said, ‘Don’t cry because it ended, smile because it happened’?” She asked. I admitted that I had heard it before, but I didn't know who was wise enough to think that was a good idea. I kept crying. Some help I am for the grieving. 

But, despite her bravery, Gran’s sadness soon bullied its way into her optimism.

“It was so sudden,” she said after a long pause. “Monday he drove himself to the hospital. Wednesday I learned he was sick, and Friday…well…” Her voice trailed off just as she started to get into the meat of how she was really feeling.

“I met his daughters for the first time at the hospital. They told me that he had spoken of me and told them he was seeing ‘a younger woman’!” With that, she laughed, but even her laugh dripped with the tears of love lost. 

“I had no idea he had told anyone about me. I certainly didn't see him as an older man. He was the same age your Grampy would be.”

I felt a little embarrassed that we were having a rob-the-cradle conversation about 88 and 92 year olds. But, it seemed to be a pleasing distraction for her, so I silently blushed and wept as she shared some thoughts about love and death.

“You make room in your life for people, in your heart. And when they go, they leave a hole where they were. It feels like I have a Stan shape in my heart. I don’t know what to do with that space now. How do you repair a hole in the middle of your tapestry?”

I've wondered the same things about the holes in my own heart.

I expected she would follow this question with some of her own spiritual advice about how God mends us, stitches our hurt. I expected a comforting verse about death, Heaven, His abiding love. Something. But she didn't cling to any of that. She didn't even reach for it. She simply sat on the line, sadly, with a Stan-shaped hole in her heart. While I couldn't relate to the pain of my lover dying, I could certainly empathize with the pain of wondering, “what now?”

“I don’t know, Gran. Maybe we just meet that space gently and sit quietly in it.” Easier said than done, I have found.

“He had the twinkliest blue eyes! And you should have seen his hair, the most beautiful white hair and beard. He had these fine wrinkles around his eyes, and when he winked at me –oh- I was toast!” I heard the smile in her voice again, and I could sense that she had her hand over her racing heart as she swooned under the memory winking back at her.

“I’m sorry I never got to meet him, he sounds like a special man. I’m so glad that you found each other and had this time together.”

“Me too.”

“You know, he is so lucky that he had you at the end of life. I’m so happy that he had the joy, and the sweetness of your love. Even though it feels like it was short, it was such a strong and comforting end to a long life.” I made myself jealous with that one… I hoped that I would have my love beside me when I am very old and leaving life. Gran has lived long enough to have many places in her heart where love has lived; and gone. Many of those places are soft and still hurting, like the Stan space. Many are old, puttied and scarred but not forgotten. I often wonder if my heart will look like Swiss cheese or a hand-made paper snowflake when I am old, or if it will be stretched to capacity with love given and received. I pray for the latter. I wished I would die old, with love squeezing my hand.

She asked about the kids, and reminded me to savor the noise, and the hard days. She told me about a day she threw herself face down on her bed and sobbed, “I can’t do it anymore!” after her houseful of 4 teenagers had driven her to the edge. I imagined my Gran crying into her pillow, broken down. She talked to me about taking her daughter to the emergency room with cuts and scrapes after a fall. “I felt so afraid, terrified. I felt so guilty, like the worst Mom on Earth.” She reminisced. She sounded like a worried mother. A tired mother. A mother doing the best she knew how to do.

She sounded like me.

As we finished our call, she was laughing and smiling with sincerity. She talked to me like a woman talking to her friend. I recognized the emotion in her voice. I recognized that my Gran is a woman who melts at the wink of a handsome eye, has been fed up with kids and scared in an emergency room. I felt thankful that Stan had happened to my Gran and I recognized that I have felt those same fears, surrender, love. The kind that will leave a hole in the middle of your tapestry.

“I think it was Mark Twain who said it.” She added at last.

And then, I smiled.