As a child growing up in a dilapidated motel
owned by my parents, we lived with my Crazy Granny, who was senile more or less
from the time I was born. My memories are of her sitting on the porch in a
rocking chair, literally waiting for Gabriel's horn. While waiting, she sang
old hymns (mainly Amazing Grace), and
talked in that 3-minute loop common to the demented and the elderly, wherein
her entire existence could be summed up in these experiences that were all that
seemed to remain of her memory. She spoke of Gert and Winnie, neither of whom I
ever met, and who may have been nothing more than her invisible friends. And
she spoke a lot to God and Jesus, asking them to take her home even though she
would also proclaim in the same breath that she didn't want to die. Maybe she
was hoping to be beamed up while still in her human garb, rather like Ezekiel
and his fiery chariot. Who's to say?
Whenever I came home from school, I would ask
how she was doing, and listen to the loop, which always concluded with,
"And now I'm a-sittin' here, a-waitin' for Gabriel's horn."
Being a somewhat devious child, I had an
instinct that she wasn't as daffy as she was trying to get everyone to believe,
so one afternoon I crawled underneath the porch with one of those plastic recorders from 3rd grade music class, and just as she was praying for Gabriel
to sound his horn... I let 'er rip!
Toot-toot-ta-toot-atoot!
Next thing I know, I hear a clatter and a
howl as Crazy Granny topples over backward in her rocking chair, feet up in the
air like some deranged cartoon character, and all the while praying at the top
of her lungs, "Jesus is coming! Jesus is coming!" as she tried to
scramble up and right herself lest Jesus catch a glimpse of her size 10
bloomers which had been revealed when her faded cotton dress flew up over her head.
Needless to say, when I crawled out from
under the porch, I wasn't the most popular kid on the block with my mother, but
when I locked eyes with Granny and she realized that Gabriel was none other
than her toe-headed granddaughter, there was a new understanding between us.
From that day forward, she had more lucidity
when talking with me privately - in other words, she really could carry on a conversation beyond
that 3-minute loop, though she would fall right back into it whenever anyone
else entered the room. My guess was that she was bored with life and with the
lives of those around her, and so she was recreating the reality that had been
far more real to her - those 3-minutes of memories when she was really Awake,
Aware and Alive (the 3 "A's). It's been suggested that perhaps Gabriel's recorder shifted her assemblage point, but I would not want to take credit for
the workings of an archangel.
Once, a few years before she died, I asked
her what she really thought when she heard that horn sound. She just smiled. "There's
a special fire just for you," she said, shaking her bony finger. "The
devil has a special fire, just for
you."
_____
Excerpted from "Into the Infinite"
All rights reserved
Excerpted from "Into the Infinite"
All rights reserved
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