Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Personal Essay)

My grandmother, Ma, has been gone for almost nine years. Let me rephrase that: My grandmother, Ma, has been dead for almost nine years. I don’t like to write the “D” word- it’s too permanent. But last night, oh last night, I was able to spend a few precious minutes with her.  Not in this life, but in my other life. The one that I live in when I sleep- my dreams.

            There she was, as real as I am, maybe more so.  She was lying in a steel framed bed, dying, but alert. Her face pale pink against the white starched sheets. A blue hued painting hung above the bed. An impressionistic one. Monet maybe? In the dream, unlike the way it had been when she actually died, Ma knew she was dying, and there was a peace in her knowledge. She was animated, smiling even, and she wanted music. Demanded it. There was an old cabinet stereo in the corner of the hospital room. Ma held out a scratched 45 rpm record of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and then she asked me to dim the harsh hospital room lights. I placed the record on the record player, and Ma laid her head back on the bed and listened and smiled.

             Back in my waking life, my heart tugs with an ache to see her, talk to her, touch her.  When she died, while I was watched helpless to keep her here, a part of me left with her. And I haven’t been able to find it since.

            But, she’s still with me. Still here. And last night it was wonderful to spend those few minutes with her.. To hear her voice and to be comforted with the reminder that she lives inside of me and that she’ll never really leave me. Not really.