ManicDDaily

Below is a little illustrated story I wrote about one of my grandmothers some time ago that I am posting for a dVerse Poets Pub, memoir prompt,  hosted by Victoria C. Slotto. I’m sorry the pics are so bad; clearer versions can be found here (where you can see as a slide show).  I’ve typed out the text below.

February was a month my grandmother just couldn’t take anymore. She would look out the window and wish away grey.

Sometimes she had a little dog. She wasn’t supposed to have a little dog but she’d make up some excuse.

She loved to look at it perk up by the window. The one I remember had a sharp little tail, perked by definition.

Sometimes, in February, she’d get sick, and we would fly out there, then drive. The hospital was a long straight road away in Minnesota, a curvy one in Iowa.

I watched the shoulders. The twists in Iowa came out of nowhere and the road was edged by a sudden sassy lip like the ones that tortured teacher. My mother was a teacher, and every time we skidded across that gravelly edge she cursed all Republicans who, in her mind, refused to pay for public works.

One February, my grandmother got sick in Washington, D.C., my hometown. She had the most beautiful stark white hair.

I was very brave decisive. Seeing that the hospital stay convinced my grandmother that she was about to die, I got my mom to take her out. Against doctors’ orders.

The next day she was so much better she jumped from bed to a little portable potty then ate a big breakfast, smiling as she stole secret spoonfuls of jam, a sure sign that life will go on.

One February sometime later, she came to me on a school bus. I was careful not to tell her she had died. So fearful was I that she would leave again, I did not speak to her at all.

I sat in a place she might not see, tears streaming. Her cloud of stark white hair looked almost solid.

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(I might edit the text if I were redoing today, but it’s written on the pics.) All art is original; all rights reserved.