The Journal

Last night, I was at my father's for the first time since
my grandmother, Dorothea, had died. He had spoken
over the phone to me of a large chest of old coins he
had found (all silver) and it was drug into the dining room
for the purpose of me going through it.

Quite interesting stuff to be found, all that old silver,
I've never seen anything like it before. Holding a silver
dollar piece, with the year 1881 stamped on it, was an
experience I'm not likely to forget. We've no idea what to
do with any of this, not to mention all the silver certificates
and the single gold certificate. Research has begun and
hopefully we'll find out something useful.

Dorothea also had a large amount of jewelry, almost
all of it valuable (even beyond sentimental reasons) and
a good portion of it quite attractive, even to my bizarre
tastes. It's my father's job to dole all of this out to the
surviving family, despite the fact that there's only two
girls (one of whom being me) in the immediate bloodline.
All others are by marriage, or offspring far removed. He
gave me some wonderful marcasite pieces, mostly brooches.
One of them spelling out her name in script. I could feel
my face light up as he showed them to me, telling me about
each one and how he remembered her wearing them when
he was a young boy. These are pieces that will leave my
possession only under the cold grip of death. No one is
getting these from me. They represent her to me, and are
therefore extremely special. I was also given her short mink
stole, commonly referred to as "the muskrat" in my family.
I'm not a person to wear fur, I don't normally agree with the
concept of wearing fur. But, this will be mine. I will treasure
it. And if I ever have the occasion where I need to dress up
that formally, I will also wear it with pride.

The best find was in the pirate booty chest. An old leather
journal, with the spine sadly broken. Every single page
written upon. It was a five year journal, the kind which gives
an entry space for every day and all five years on one
page. Not a lot of room to write, especially for someone who
is as verbose as I am. It had belonged to my grandmother's
boyfriend of thirty some years. Ray, the man I never met,
and who died in 1990. The years in this journal covered
1965 to 1969. I sat, cross legged, on the dining room floor
completely engrossed. It wasn't anything of high importance,
I would reckon, it was mostly a catalog of what he and Dorothea
(called Dottie, by him) did every day. All written in third person,
it talked about when they got up every day, what they did,
who they saw, what they ate for dinner, and any other things
he felt should be noted down. I read how he and Dorothea danced
to Guy Lombardo's orchestra and how beautiful he thought she
looked that night. I read about the day she caught the six foot
sailfish, which now hangs in my father's living room. I read about
the dogs that she adored and raised and bred. I read about the
assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King. No scandals, other than the
occasional "Ray and Dottie went to bed at 11:45, had some
nice sex." or the brief discussion of how her one son, my uncle
Gene, rarely called or wrote to her. A thing that happened frequently
even during my lifetime.

He wrote much about how he loved my grandmother and
how wonderful and beautiful he thought she was. He talked
about the Tuesdays when she worked late and the loneliness
that would come to him on those nights.

I read the entire book, thank goodness for the first time
my incredibly fast reading skill. I read it and I smiled. I've
never known much about my family before, and I've
become something of a pest in trying to wheedle
information out of all of them regarding our history. This
is the first time I've ever gotten such a good look at it.
Even though it was day to day events and nothing very
earth shattering, it was an enormous treasure to me.

I never met Ray, though I always wished I had. Now,
I can at least feel that I knew him a small amount. And
know how much my grandmother meant to him. How much
my family meant to him. My father told me that Ray wrote
down everything, and that there's another book yet to be
found. A bigger one, probably of sketch book size. It's
most likely in the basement, with the rest of my grandmother's
belongings. Still boxed up from their trip out of Florida
almost ten years ago. That is to be the next project, I believe.

I may not have gone through a terrible mourning, all
Victorian wailing and gnashing of teeth. But, I do now have
a large sense of closure and finality. At the same time,
there is also a feeling of continuation. I looked at a photograph
of Dorothea when she was around the age of 18 (according
to the my father, I still think she's closer to my own age
in this picture) and I saw my own smile there. The expression and
set of the mouth that I could never figure out. My mother
doesn't look like that when she smiles and neither does
my dad. I do. She and I have the same crooked grin. A comfort
in the near future when I know I'm going to begin to
experience the keening loss of her in my life. Her legacy lives
on in me, my father, his brother, all of us. I plan on living
my life in the exact same way she did.

To hell with the naysayers, I'm having a goddamn good time.