we decided to wait at the bar next door. the family chose to meet for dinner at a chinese restaurant in a strip mall and we were early. My brother, my husband and i settled into our stiff leather seats and ordered some beers. behind the counter were rows and rows of lottery tickets, so we challenged our luck and bought some to pass the time.
i hadn’t been back since i was twenty three and now, 13 years later, we came to visit. i had no intention of ever returning, but after hearing that our grandmother had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer it felt like the right thing to do, so here we were. waiting. she, my aunt, my uncle, and likely at least one cousin would be heading our way shortly.
in the beginning my aunt kept looking over her shoulder to the door as though she were waiting on someone: more hoping than expecting, her eyes returning back to the table, downcast for just a flutter. at some point in the meal, she resigned to their absence. we sat across from each other at a table full of tea pots and plates overflowing with chinese food: the peas an unnatural bright green, the sweet and sour a brilliant blaze of orange, the chicken more batter than meat, the fried rice shiny and crisp. the conversation was void of anything too exciting, mostly just pleasantries and polite exchanges. we laughed awkwardly, like it hadn’t been over a decade since i had last come. no one asks too many questions here in the land of family-who-are-strangers. in the end, the grandmother gets up to go outside and smoke a cigarette. she stood in the shadows of the stripmall lighting, staring out into the parking lot.
she invited us to her house the next day, so we walked there. we went to the grocery store near her house and bought her some chocolate ice cream bars. they were out of her favorite kind, so we splurged on the fancy ones, hoping she would still be pleased, hoping she would have an appetite for these. our grandmother lived in a small two bedroom apartment with my uncle who ended up on her couch years ago out of desperation and now had become her primary caretaker. the three of us squeezed onto their loveseat, the uncle sat in a desk chair behind us, and we faced the grandmother sitting in her own special chair, so small and underweight from the chemotherapy. in her sweet little mini mouse voice, she asked and then insisted on buying us pizza. while we waited, we talked. i asked for photos, but they had all been lost in a fire. she told us a story of when she ran away from the reservation at the age of seventeen and somehow ended up in california. she said she was wild and free and having fun, but i wonder what it was really like, why she left the reservation and all the stories she may have left there. i told her of my pottery, my art; how I had been exploring ojibwe styles, but wasn’t sure if I should, if I was stealing it from her ancestors. She said “You should make ojibwe art. You are Ojibwe.” the phone rang and she lifted the television remote to say hello and then she laughed, recognizing her error. the pizza came and my uncle put it in the kitchen on top of a stack of something. the counter, the cabinets, the makeshift shelves: all overflowing with cans and jars and cups and boxes of quick meals. things all piled up to the very edge of it all, precarious and daring. we each had a slice, trying to leave a little leftover for her. i suggested we get a photo together, so the little woman squeezed in between my brother and i and my husband took some shots. she had chemo again tomorrow so we left, not wanting to tire her.
i had reached out in march, begging for stories. no one responded. i reached out again, asking someone else if they could relay my hopes. a thumbs up. and nothing. perhaps her mind was already gone, perhaps my requests were too painful, perhaps….i will never know.
she passed away two weeks ago now. i’ll be headed to the funeral this thursday.
i still hear her voice: cartoonishly high and sing-song, soothing somehow despite the shrill.
i still see her: standing outside the chinese restaurant in the pacific northwest autumn air, a foggy cloud billowing around her.
i wonder: does anyone know her stories?
Fall 2021
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