monumental

Today I bought a couple of headstones, but neither of them were for my Grama, which caused some momentary confusion among family members who thought I had taken it upon myself to order one up.

I had not. It's my policy to only think about burying people once they're ready to be buried. Grama's not there yet.

But Grama and I have long had the habit of hanging out in graveyards together, and Lake View was one of our favorite haunts.

Her sister is buried there, along with her much cherished grandmother, and I've written before about how together we would uncover the sod that overtakes their pauper stones with ferocious regularity.

Now that I'm gone to Chicago and since Grama stopped driving some time back there's no one near to make sure that the small cement blocks stay exposed to the sun.

So I stopped by Lake View Cemetery today to order up a couple of headstones, one for Corinne and one for Ingeborg, and when I told Grama, who graduated out of language about 48 hours ago, what I had done, she fixed me with her one good eye (things have gotten very Diving Bell and Butterfly) and loved on me good.

If she'd been feeling better I might also have told her how the mortician had a gangster's last name and had the incongruous habit of using the expression "la dee dah" as a comma. She would have come back with an unbearably funny observation and we would have giggled until, quite possibly, we were in danger of wetting our pants.

As is our custom.

But what I got was enough.

It's been so good, all of it. We've had a tremendous goodbye.

(Now if only my heart weren't so broken.)

Posting by cameraphone from Grama's bedside where she lies dozing.

Update: temporary markers »