remembrances on an in-between day
Yesterday, I read “The Hurting Kind” by Ada Limón, reprinted in her new book, Startlement.
“A famous poet said he never wanted to hear,” she writes, “another poem about a grandmother or a grandfather.”
Yesterday marked six years since my grandfather, Pop, Steve Ramsey, died.
“You can’t sum it up. A life,” Limón writes, though I tried when, six years ago, I wrote and delivered Pop’s eulogy. Nor can I easily sum up my life that has passed since Pop has been gone: two graduations, hundreds of books read, two big-girl jobs, my first book written and rewritten, marriage. Pop has not been here, but has been with me, for all of it.
In our family group chat, my mom has encouraged us to share something we’re thankful for each day in November. Yesterday, my dad asked “for those that knew him” to share a memory of Pop as our gratitude.
My mom said she was grateful for Pop’s affinity for ice cream, my dad for how much Pop loved to laugh and make other people laugh. My sister Ashtyn said she loves that he always cried when we left their house after a visit (Limón calls herself “a weeper from a long line of weepers”). My sister Cayden said she liked to ride home from the beach with him, in his truck with manual windows. Brady, my brother and the youngest, said he liked that Pop had a lot of influence in picking our birthday and Christmas presents. Pop “was always thinking of us,” he said.
I shared how grateful I am that I lived with Gram and Pop while completing an internship in the summer of 2019. I never imagined how soon after those two months we would lose Pop, so I cherish that time—going to the beach together, reading in the living room each night.
“As someone who didn’t know Pop,” my husband Loui wrote, “I’m thankful for the stories that all of you share about him.”
In her poem, Limón writes, “No one said it was my job to remember.” We all remember—we’re an extended family full of photo-takers and note-writers and storytellers.
With Gram and Pop, celebrating my first birthday.
Gram is our matriarch of memories. She keeps everything, from the two birthday cards Pop gave her each year (one sentimental, one funny) to trinkets that might have otherwise been trash. At least part of my identity as a rememberer, a diarist, must come from Gram.
I’ve always been a keeper of dates, too. November 8, now, is always the day my grandfather died. November 10 is always the day I was born.
Today feels like an in-between day. The date itself is insignificant, but it sags under the weight of yesterday’s grief and tomorrow’s anticipation (I love my birthday).
On November 9, 2019, we stuck to our plans—a basketball tournament for Brady, dinner and a concert as my birthday celebration—even though we were grieving.
We’re still grieving, though mercifully not the same way we were six years ago, and I’m grateful to Ada Limón for permission to write about my beloved grandfather again and again.
As she writes, “I will not stop this reporting of attachments.”