Thirteen years ago today my grandfather, Goggy, died of colon cancer. I was nearly 7 and I may have cried, but I did not yet miss the grandfather with the fuzzy beard or gentle voice. I did not recognize the absence in place of the presence. My little brother, 3 at the time, certainly did not understand the sense of loss. And yet he tried to call Goggy on the phone when he got to Kentucky and couldn't find him. He knew that someone was missing.
What happens when who we love is no longer who we love, but who we miss? I've missed a lot of things and a lot of people throughout the years. Without even transporting myself mentally to some soft-hued time and place of my younger days I can remember and miss my adventures at sail camp, the time my best friend and I pretended we were mermaids on her Laser sailboat, the moments in which the world seemed like a conquerable piece of real estate, even for a little girl. I miss my pets, every single one of them, even if in a small way. George the orange tabby who died a sudden and unfortunate death. Tubby who was, well, tubby, and who ran away most likely to feast on the pleasures of the world. Wally, the dumbest and sweetest pin-headed lab who in his final days had to be transported in a wheelbarrow from the house to the yard because he couldn't move very well. So we moved for him.
And then there was Gus. My beloved 10-year-old golden retriever who passed away this summer. He was decidedly the most gorgeous wonderful dog to ever grace the Hardaway household, or any household in fact. I loved him with all of my heart but even my full heart could not save him from a tumor which took his. I had never been so viscerally impacted as on the day my mother told me Gussie was gone. I could no longer love my most beloved; I would have to start missing.
It's easy to miss animals. For me, especially, an ardent animal lover, longing for the furry doe-eyed creatures is a natural bodily response to a loss. You'll cry, a sadness will descend upon you which will color your vision for a few days, maybe a week. And then you'll start thinking about puppies and kittens which could maybe do justice to stand in for your lost pet.
People are different. When you lose a person, whether he's taken forever, or just taken from you, missing does not come so easily. When we decide to miss a person, we decide to let a piece of ourselves go. Missing someone means looking in the mirror and telling yourself, "Now, things are going to be different." It's this difference that is so painful. This longing and longing and longing to put everyone where they should be in your life, but finding that in the end there is an empty space.
When I was very little and Goggy came to visit he would take us out in the yard to the trees by the marsh. The trees were not particularly special until his visits. And then they were transformed. Goggy called the trees "money trees" because he would reach into their branches and pull dollar bills out from among the leaves. My sister and I were never able to understand how only when Goggy visited these trees produced such treasures, and how only Goggy could find the money hidden beneath the natural greenery. Even in retrospect, I'm not positive that it was all a trick. Maybe a grandfather can conjure up the impossible for the ones he loves.
I've been to all four of my grandparents' funerals. They were here and now they're gone and it is easier for me to recall the soft white underbelly of George than it is for me to recall the sleepovers and Sunday church visits with my grandparents. I loved my grandparents and now I am trying to miss them even when the memory is blurry so that they may have a place among my empty spaces.
I never want to stop missing. Just the other day I was upset and all I wanted was to hold on to someone or something, and I couldn't stop thinking about Gussie and how he was the perfectly understanding pillow. So I became even sadder, but then I decided that when I'm sad about something I miss, it seems to be a sadness worth holding on to. I clung to one of my pillow pets and cried into his ears and missed Gus with my whole body so that neither one of us would have to feel alone.
Goggy's favorite place in the world was the beach. Every year we used to go to South Carolina for a week with my mother's side of the family, and Goggy would don his silly floppy hat and take his spot under the umbrella. I know my mother misses this; I know these memories viscerally impact her just as losses to my almost-grown up self have impacted me. After Goggy died, whenever we go to the beach we send up balloons with messages on them, trailing high, high into the sky, creating the presence we can no longer see, but one we can certainly feel.
I've been missing a lot of things lately. Places and people too. Missing something is a slow throbbing which is dulled when you reclaim what it is you're missing, and then newly painful when you lose whatever it is again. I can't piece together all of my memories about what I've lost, who I've lost and how much missing I have left to do. All I can think and hope for is that my missing will let me say one day, as Whitman said, "We were together. I forget the rest."
Mary Scott's column runs biweekly Wednesdays. She can be reached at m.hardaway@cavalierdaily.com.
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