in reality

Kayleb Rae Candrilli, from “My partner wants me to write them a poem about Sheryl Crow"

The memories I will send in:

She used to scoop warm bathwater in her big plastic cup to gently wash the shampoo from my hair. She would park across the fields and watch my sister and I run to her car after school. For supper, we would help her and my dad set the table. We’d say grace in unison: come lord Jesus, be my guest. May these gifts to us be blessed, Amen.

She was a woman of routine, rising at 6am and going to bed at 10pm. Saturday was the beauty shop, and Sunday was church. She loved Judge Judy and Wheel of Fortune. At Culver’s, she’d always order a kid’s meal. When she’d answer her phone, her hello would always emphasize the “o.” Normally, when you’d call, the line would be busy. She loved to chat.

She’d respond to every I love you with I love you more.

I remember her plaid green and creme pullout couch. The lumps of the mattress I can still feel. Her pink and blue blankets lined with silk.

Her placemat with the fish. Her pastel plastic cups. The bin of potatoes and onions under the counter. Her wood stools, and the one chair with the straw seat and wood backing. The photo of the man saying a prayer over his meal.

The jars on her tables were always filled with candy. There was always room for a cookie.

To pay her bills, she sat in front of her secretary desk.

Her bed was the same bed that she slept on with grandpa. He died over thirty years ago.

Every year, she would decorate for each holiday with the same decorations. I found safety in her predictability.

What I also wish I could include:

I sat in the middle back seat of her Ford Taurus as we drove away from my mom’s. My sister said she didn’t want to go see my dad, and my mom wouldn’t force her so I went alone. Grandma never swore, but that day she told me my sister was being a bitch.

I remember watching her and my aunt throw away all the liquor bottles, clean up the trash off the floor, make the house resemble a home as my dad was in the hospital, nearly dead. I remember watching their quick precise movements. I remember feeling distant from them.

I remember “Dean, you need to get off the couch and feed these girls. Otherwise, I’m taking them with me.” I remember desperately wanting to go with her. I remember being left.

I remember holding our Subways sitting in her car as I watched my dad come out the back of a building descending metal stairs. He was on work release from jail. I remember no one telling me what was happening. I remember confusion.

I remember being told, “Maybe if you moved in to live with your dad, he would stop drinking.”

I remember silence. Not the absence of words, but the absence of the truth.

In reality:

I did not send any memories in. Her funeral has passed. I felt (feel) catatonic. I cannot seem to put words to this experience, not in the way I would like.