dear samaritan.

I was not very close with my Grandma until after she died. Now, sometimes it feels like she's all I've truly got. She left here when I was in-between a girl and a woman-- and she, a true lady. She was high society and had pretty things. I'm still stuck in that in-between, and I know now that she helps me quietly...removing the wedge...from me and her, from me now and who I could ever possibly become. I trust in her. She had a career as a judicial officer in Salt Lake City. When I'm a bit too hard on myself, I remember. The Justice of The Peace herself adores and defends me.

I inherited two treasures from her arsenal of fancy things. A European antique mirror, and a delicate gold chain necklace. I wear the necklace often. My hands go to it. It's something to hold onto. When I'm sick or sad, deafeated or trying not to laugh. I touch my necklace and say.. "Hey Grandma?"

We end up talking a lot.

I ask her what it's like to die. She always says... "It's kind of like being born" I tell her I do not remember being born and she's always surprised. "You don't remember being born??"

"Grandma... you do???"

"Yes child. When you are ushered in to this world it is understoond to be the beginning. But many friends say goodbye and weep as you enter out from the womb. And they wish you luck but they know for certain...you will forget who you are."

Two treasures. Two small but important moments I shared with my grandma this life. One when I was a small child and again when I was a teenager. They never made much sense to me while happening, I just knew they were important. What was actually occurring was of little significance to the moment. It was setting the stage for a relationship that extends far beyond the world her and I knew.

When I was 5 yrs old I told my parents, out of the blue, that I wanted to have a sleepover with my grandma and stay the night at her house. This was an unusual request because it's not something we ever did. I didn't talk to my grandma or play with her ever. I just knew who she was. And I didn't actually want to sleep at her house. I just said I did. And so I did.

It meant so much more to my grandma than it did to me. I was terribly homesick. I slept on a feather pillow for the first time. My head sank into it and hit the bottom, my tears soaked through it. I felt so lonely in her strange elegant home with no toys and no sisters or brother or parents or noise. Just my head sunk in a pillow. But my grandma was so excited, and I remember I felt a sense of duty about that. Like I was taking one for the team. Saturday morning came and grandma made bacon for breakfast. The smell of bacon made me long to be back home, with my siblings watching cartoons and having hot chocolate and toast.

Years later when I was 15, I found myself back at grandma's house for another sleepover. It had meant so much to her so long ago that she arranged with my dad for us do it again. At that time I was struggling hard with depression, panic attacks and never wanting to go to school. I didn't have good friends, and had forgotten who I was. She took me out on the town. She laughed with me. She told me she would lend me her sexy silk pajamas and that would get the wheels turning again. I smiled a faint smile and laughed a dull laugh. And found myself later that night crying again into a sinking feather pillow...and the smell of bacon again the next morning. And the sadness that washed over me as a child, I was evermore aware of now. A longing to be back home... whatever home was.

As life blazed on it seems I kept on forgetting. Who I am. Who am I.

A year ago, I sat on a bathroom floor that wasn't mine, wrapped in a towel that wasn't mine, even though I had used them for many years leading up to that night. The night before I moved out of the place that was supposed to be "home" with a husband and two incredible, magical children. I sat on a floor that was so foreign and yet so familiar to me. I did not know all I was about to face. And thank God for that. I look back on that moment and wonder how I ever survived. How. How did I scoop up everything that made a home and take it away, and leave a house behind. I packed up everything by myself in one single day. I don't even think I cried. I just packed and taped boxes until there was a mound of stuff that I literally sat on top of in the garage, waiting there for the moving truck to arrive. A motorcycle peeled out of the driveway. I had nobody's blessing on this. Nobody's help. With my precious kids under my wing and all the art I created over the years, I left. Nobody could comprehend why. I could not articulate "why". And fuck trying to make them all understand. Forget them. For I had forgotten who I was so terribly, that I was sick in my bones.

I should mention about my grandma... she went through a lot. Her marriage to my Grandpa was infantile and explosive. Infidelity in retaliation to infidelity, until no one even knew who started it and no one planned on ending it. End the marriage first, yeah. Do that. Sure. It's very easy. Just sign some papers. Your heart will be fine. Split up the family. The kids will be fine. Pull the rug out, nothing's gonna fall. Just slip away, no one will notice you're gone.
Until you're gone.
Until you're gone.
Until you're gone.

It was a soft landing at the new place. Setting up camp again was almost effortless. Going at it alone was exciting and empowering. And that felt so wrong to me that I tried to make it more difficult for myself. Because I witnessed the pain others felt from my actions. I felt their anger, sadness and confusion. And I took every bit of it on. I layered it upon myself as if it was my duty. And was crushed accordingly.

"So you gone went and did it, you threw yourself to the wolves...... I'm so proud of you."

My grandma whispered. And I could barely hear her through all the noise. I wasn't so sure it was her.

You did this. You did this.
Those word pierced my soul, and I was at liberty to make anything of them. Good or bad.

After living in a one bedroom place at the in-laws for over 4 years, my boys finally had their own room, and so did I. We got snow cones and went to the swimming pool every single day. That was a little pocket of happiness that I could retreat to because it was impossible to ignore that goodness was sprouting from the new soil. I'd been working as a food delivery driver as part of my quest to stand on my own two feet. It worked out wonderfully, but I was heavy. My great escape seemed nearly futile if I couldn't get a grip on my own decision. I lived in deep sadness and shame for a very long time. And those Saturday mornings...when my boys were away and I was delivering breakfast to other families who lived happily up on the hill, the smell of bacon crept through to remind me...that I had forgotten completely. Who I am.

Most nights at my new place I would lay myself in my bed at night and feel so frantic and distubred. I couldn't catch my breath or stop crying. I felt so helpless like I was free falling through time and space and was never going to stop. On those horrific nights, I would quietly pray to God, with whatever I had left in me. "Grandma...will you please come stay the night?"

She came every single time. And I was filled with complete love and peace. She rocked me to sleep night after night as tears soaked my pillow. She came to help me remember who I am. Which is infinitely more than I had ever allowed myself to be before.

It's as simple as the sexy silk pajamas. If only I would have listened to her all those years ago and taken them for a spin. Pajamas that resemble a powerful truth. Just wear them. Allow it. Laugh and smile. Be who you are. Claim your power. Be bold and beautiful. Stop apologizing that you are you. Dance around. Have sleepover parties with your grandma. Celebrate.

I've been trying on the silk pajamas lately. I appear crazy, to have lost my mind a little bit. Which means one thing...I am remembering who I am. Who I am is far from normal or even acceptable but so so very exceptional. Little by little my art gets hung all over my walls, along with my grandma's old European mirror. When I hung the mirror in my room I stood in front of it and asked.

"What to do you think, Grandma?"

She said... "It is your best work of art yet. You....are...right where you should be, and you look incredible there. Go, be a lady."

Case dismissed.