Nana
by
Noah Wardrip-Fruin
When I was nine months old, still in a walker, on a day that I do not remember, my mother was sitting in our living room. From where she sat she could see down our hallway, past the front door, to the place where the hallway turned in the direction of my bedroom.
From the bedroom came a crashing sound. But perhaps this was not so unusual, and it did not sound to her mother's ear as if I was hurt, so she waited. In time, I came clumsily down the hallway, dragging a small overnight suitcase. That hallway I do remember, with white plaster walls and a brass chime that the doorbell made ring (and a closet with stairs beneath it that led to a basement that may only exist in my imagination). I made my way to the front door, put my small hand on the knob, turned to look at my mother and waved (I couldn't speak): Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
My mother tells me that she cried.
 Nana with child |
There is a loss of memory. I was probably trying to visit Nana, my mother's mother. By the time of my first self-aware, narrative memories Nana was already losing many of hers. I have only hints of what she was like from my own experience, a sense of her difference, and memories of moments in the kitchen when she named my puppet monkey Minkey and made chocolate milkshakes. I remember going to visit her in the nursing home, where she was once she could no longer walk. On this visit she thought I was her son Wally, or so I imagine. She told me how she couldn't wait to get out of there and be back on her feet again. We took her to the house for Christmas. She looked at one of her great-grandsons, too young to be walking, and said, "He's coming and I'm going. But I can't get a seat." That summer she got a seat. |
After she died we were left with a box of her letters. Not letters she had written, but letters that belonged to her. These seemed like poor materials for reconstituting a woman - but they, the paper trail, seemed to be all that was left.
At the same time, she seemed more alive after her death than in years. While she was alive, but after she was no longer herself, we had continued to leave her to carry the burden of being her. Once she was dead we took it upon ourselves. At the memorial service we treated each other with the care that she had given.
The paper trail is no dodge for impermanence. But here I sit, inscribing Nana's existence again, attempting another addition to the collective box of letters.
