In memory of...

She's gone. Forever.

Danuta Sava-Wysocka, I think. I really hope I didn't spell her name wrong. But she died at 60 a couple of weeks ago, and I just found out. She was in the Chopin Conservatory of Music, and she taught voice. I remember her so well - all those concerts where she would accompany her singers on the piano, overpedaling, but she was just so charming. I will always remember her smile, and I've never said that phrase before. Not even for my deceased grandmother.

She's gone. Forever.

My grandmother on my dad's side died last year in February. I didn't get to see her final days, but my dad did, and I wonder whether he was traumatized. She had had a stroke after falling in the bathroom, which basically made her unable to do anything. So, she was in the hospital... She refused to eat anything but little pieces of ice cream, and my dad sat there with her, without a word -- a simple, single, comprehensible, communicative, message-sending word -- leaving her lips. This continued until she died, probably from starvation; I don't even remember. God, I even forgot that the one-year anniversary of her death passed. I feel guilty sometimes that we didn't visit her that often after my grandfather, her husband, died. It corresponds with us (or me at least) forgetting about her one-year death anniversary... God, I can't help but feel like I missed out on something.

They're gone. Forever.

And so my childhood is gradually passing away, like strips of wallpaper peeling themselves off the surface, bit by bit. These days I've been feeling more like I'm in the physical state of being an adult now, and I can't explain it, but it is just that way. You know, I didn't think that those monthly piano recitals would ever end. And now, I know there's one part of them that I can never return to... she's gone. When my grandmother died last year, I lost the cubbyhole of my childhood that was Cape Cod. You know, a little dusty in there, but that's where you go to get your stuff to play, your cubbyhole? Cape Cod attacked me with allergies, but before I picked up nihilism my junior year, Cape Cod was the place where I always came to just enjoy life and play, having a real childhood experience, and Grandma and Granddad, I thank you for that. Whenever I return to the Cape, I feel a certain impotence, because I can never have that back.

Which is why I will appreciate every moment with Lola while she's here.
This 90th birthday will be a blast for her, and for me, and whether I'm a kid anymore, I can end this phrase saying that I am coming home.