My grandmother passed away. She was my father’s mother.

I didn’t know her very well.

The truth is, I have a whole family that I don’t know very well.

On the way to the funeral my big brother and I talked about our childhood.

We talked about how alone we felt, the way we were neglected.

How much we fought with each other, the violence we felt towards being abandoned.

We talked about the things we shouldn’t have seen, the ugliness of addiction,

about the family we never had.

We talked as parents of our own but we felt like children.

Nervous, uncertain, we prepared to greet a family of strangers.

The funeral home was a funeral home. Lots of curtains and wallpaper.

Made to feel like a home but who wants to live there?

The service was nice. It was closed casket and there were flowers.

There was an oval picture of her when she was young next to the casket.

She was pretty.

The man talked about her life and read letters that her children had written.

I listened as one who is searching for clues.

And I tried to remember.

I spent a few weeks with her one summer sometime around third grade.

I really liked her. Her name was Ruby and she was funny.

When she talked I liked to listen to the grittiness underneath her voice.

She was rough around the edges but soft in her eyes.

She had a phone in her kitchen with the longest, curly chord I have ever seen.

And she smelled like Merle Norman face cream.

And the food.

Chicken and dumplings, cherry strudel and coffee always percolating.

Velveeta slices, saltine crackers and pepsi.

I was in 8 year old heaven.

She wasn’t very religious and neither was I but I remember lying in bed in the guest room.

I remember singing prayers for what felt like hours.

 I don’t know what I sang but I know how I felt.

Safe. Warm. Happy.

I could’ve lied there singing prayer-songs forever.

My grandmother was a good woman. And I know that she loved me.

But those few weeks in the summer somewhere around third grade is all I really have of her.

And as I sat there in that funeral home where nobody wants to live, I felt numb.

In a room full of family, a room full of strangers, I felt out of place.

But sitting there, at my grandmother’s funeral, squished up next to my big brothers beside me,

I felt something else too.

I felt pride.

In my big brothers, strong men, fathers with children whom they take to football practice.

In myself, a woman wearing a dress and combat boots, a mother of children, a singer of prayer songs.

And for the first time in a long time, I did not feel alone.

It was sad that my grandmother had died.

It was sad that we didn’t know her.

But it was a tragedy that she didn’t know us.

On the way home from the funeral my big brother and I talked about our childhood.

We talked about the times we stood up for each other.

The way we fought with each other did not compare with way we fought for each other.

We talked about my mother’s love and tenacity. How she kept us and wouldn’t let go.

And we realized that even though we have an entire family we don’t know, it doesn’t matter.

Because we have a family that we do know.

We have each other.

We talked as parents of our own but we felt like children.