When It’s Time, It’s Time
There’s a sound that often is paired with a video that makes it rounds on the TikToks. Most times it’s accompanied with a question to help the viewer identify why kind of traumatic emotion the sound illicits from them. It’s a way to help identify childhood trauma. I’ve never liked the sound. It always hit me wrong, like it made me uncomfortably sad whenever I heard it and it literally hurt my ears hearing it. I know I have unresolved childhood trauma - most of my memories were lost when I had my stroke, so it’s not a stretch that they’re still there waiting. I would scroll past them - mostly because they were ads is what I told myself. Then posts with that same sound were gearing towards the vibe of “if you make a woman sound like this, you’re a piece of shit” or “you just pissed off all of her ancestors - sucks to be you” kind of thing. The feeling I got from the sound was the same, regardless of how it was presented: unmitigated anguish. The kind of anguish that usually will crush a soul. I couldn’t scroll past them fast enough - I was just going through a soul numbing break-up, my child wasn’t speaking to me, and there was some fucked up woo-woo shit going on in my house. Dealing with my “demons” and ancestors was going to have to wait.
Welp, they aren’t waiting anymore.
It seemed every single time I swiped, there was that sound again. And given my mindset of everything happens for a reason, I figured I had better find out what the reason was and quick. I listened to the sound - it was heartbreaking. Like the death of something. I pondered on my late husband’s death - I thought I had finally processed it all, but growing and healing is never a linear path. It wasn’t his. I thought maybe it was the ex. It wasn’t easy for me to make the decision to leave him and when he was flitting about town with the woman he lied to me about two weeks after I left, I’m not going to lie, it destroyed me. Like shattering my soul to the point of being numb to everything. It wasn’t him. As I thought, my mind wandered to my mindset of not fearing death. Fearing death is a normal human feeling. When did I lose that? I thought about all the people I’ve lost over my 40+ years and as I was thinking, I heard in my mind a tiny, little girl’s voice ask, “Why did she have to die?” I knew who the little girl was and who she was talking about. That little girl was me when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I had watched my half-sister being an ass to our uncle - nothing out of the ordinary, they were dickheads to each other - and my uncle went off on my half-sister. There was a slight scuffle, but I heard Dad yell at her to leave him alone. Dad was angry, and he was never angry at that half-sister, so something must’ve been wrong. I heard him say Grandma had died. Us kids were pretty young, and Mom and Dad explained what death was, but I was pretty hysterical. I don’t remember what was said to me, I just remember the emotions of anger and frustration. I’m going to presume it was because I was wailing, “Why did she die?” as the young girl kept wailing in my head, her anguish matching the emotion from the sound that was still playing on my phone.
I didn’t realize I was crying until my dog jumped at me (as he tends to do when I’m all up in my feels), and as I petted him to ground myself, I sat with my younger self. As an adult, I knew Grandma had had Type I diabetes; and because she was a single mother of five kids and insulin costs a fortune, Grandma managed her condition the best she could. Which is to say not as well as she would’ve if her life circumstances had been different. My grandmother had a heart attack brought on by her diabetes. The logic was lost on Little Sue. “But why did she have to die?” I didn’t understand the emphasis on the she. What? Did my younger self want someone else to die in Grandma’s place? How fucked up am I?!? Barely out of Kindergarten and I’m already trying to figure out how to cheat Death. I thought back to the few memories I have of my paternal grandmother. We rarely saw her, but the times I remember her visiting I remember her treating all of us kids equally - which was a big deal to me as a child because I saw how my mother’s parents always seemed to treat my older brother differently than the rest of us, myself in particular. Grandma Perry gave us all equal and undivided attention. We all had to take turns with her, and when she was with one child and another one wanted her attention, she made them wait until their turn. She was never mean about it - very matter of fact, and if you didn’t like it oh well; but I can’t recall a time when one of us threw a fit when she made us wait. I remember a time when I picked some clover blooms for her and she showed me how to get honey from them. Dad told me I had cleared the yard that evening and had clover petals stuck in my teeth. Grandma Perry also taught me the wonderful combination of peanut butter and bananas. I remember she had us for awhile (I don’t know where my parents were) and I remember it was lunch time. Grandma didn’t have strawberry jelly (it was the only kind I would eat right up until I was around 20), so she suggested bananas. I remember being icked by the idea until she said it was Elvis Presley’s favorite sandwich. As the aspiring singing diva I fancied myself as back then, and an Elvis Presley fanatic, I was sold. Grandma even let me stand on the piano bench and belt out You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog while she made lunch and my siblings pounded on the piano keys and bang on pots.
We were gonna give the Osmonds a run for their money.
But my most favorite memory I have of my grandmother was when she gave me a purse. It was shiny black alligator purse with a gold clasp that twisted. I was in awe that Grandma would give me such a beautiful gift. I had asked if I had to share it with my little sister. Grandma said no, the purse was just for me. Inside, were three whole pennies and a peppermint. Grandma said she had no idea how those got in there, the purse was empty when she put it in the car. “It must be a magic purse.” My young mind was absolutely BLOWN. My grandma gave me a MAGIC purse! I remember asking her again if it was just for me. I can still feel Grandma’s hand touch my cheek. “It’s just yours. No one else’s.”
By now, I’m sharing my younger self’s pain. Why did Grandma Perry have to die? She was the only one who never yelled at me when I asked too many questions. She was the only one who listened to me when I told my stories. She was the only one who let me be me. Oh, she never let me be or act like an asshole; but when I did, she corrected, not diminish me or make like there was something wrong with me. Grandma Perry was the only grown up to see me. Why did she have to die? WHY? The grief was heavy as I bawled my eyes out alongside my younger self asking the same thing over and over again. I was hugging myself and rocking back and forth, letting myself sit with the grief like I had done when I finally fully processed my husband’s death. A memory popped into my head. My father and I were sitting at the dining room table one night and the conversation got around to Grandma Perry and the “magic” purse. I knew it was just a patent leather purse and the clasp was just painted metal, but I kept that thing until we had to move to Kansas - I had given it to my younger sisters as my Grandma had given it to me and my youngest sister was the current owner of the “magic” purse when the clasp was broken and it was accidentally thrown out with their other broken toys. He couldn’t believe it had lasted as long as it had. Then he got quiet and looked at me with an odd expression, like my father was seeing me for the first time. I will never forget what he quietly said right before the herd of cats I fondly called my son and little sisters came in from outside.
“You’re a lot like her. She would have been proud of you.”
I wanted to ask Dad what he meant but never got the chance to. I relayed that memory to my younger self and we both just sat there thinking about Grandma Perry. And I shit you not, I felt the pressure of a hug on my shoulders and smelled the scent of cashmere and peppermint - two scents that aren’t in my house. My dog moved from my lap to his spot on the couch and stared at me. Only then I realized the wailing was still playing on my phone. It sounded different now, not as soul crushing as it was before. Sad, for sure, but no longer did it hurt my ears or give me anxiety. I’m not going to say what shadow this had shown me, because, as I have previously said, the spiritual world isn’t all love and light; but I will say I’m more balanced than I was before this experience.
And I have a whole pack of viciously protective ancestors that are more than happy to do the dirty work for me. God help you if you get the one called “The Hag.” She’s even too vindictive for me. Grandma Burns says she needs to find Jesus and as much as The Hag has taught me, I’m kinda agreeing with Grandma Burns here. Seriously, red chili flakes AND bullets for a return to sender? The Hag’s response to the question?
“Nails and glass can be healed. Bullet holes, not so much.”
Oh lord help me…
