I had a rather-successful grad school interview last Monday. I say "rather" because I think it went pretty well, but we will see how the school felt about it sometime before the end of the month. Unfortunately, their opinion is much more important than mine.
The interview was in Portland. I was lucky enough to be able to stay with a few current students while I was there. I walked back to their apartment after the festivities had wrapped up (alone, they were still in class) feeling pretty darn good about myself. I walked in, checked my phone, and with one little text message all those good feelings fell straight to the pit of my stomach.
Let me rewind. My sweet grandmother had been diagnosed with lung cancer a few years ago. She'd been a fighter through it all, trying chemo and radiation and the whole nine yards. Unfortunately, this hadn't helped and she and her doctors had decided to stop treatment a few months ago. Also unfortunately, she hadn't shared that information with anyone in her family - always trying to protect us, my Memere. So when we got a phone call a few months ago that she wasn't doing so well at all, and to brace for impact it was a big surprise. My family was planning a trip to Florida for the end of January to see her one last time.
Did I mention my interview was on Monday? Well on Thursday or Friday we got the worst phone call you can get: get your @$$ to Florida, now. I took my sister to the airport Saturday morning, but what the heck was I going to do? I had been preparing for this interview for a month. It was my first (and only) interview so far. This was important stuff. But my Memere - well, everything was too up in the air to say. I talked to my family about it and decided I would go to Portland on Monday and fly to Florida on Tuesday. It was a terrible decision to have to make, but we all thought it was the right one to make.
Until I got that text message on Monday evening. My family and I had been talking the night before, they were all together in Florida and had called to wish me luck. I hadn't brought my phone with me to the school, but my Mom texted me during the day something most simple: "Please call when you're done, hope it went great! Love you!" And it was so unassuming, so benign, but I knew. I stalled to make that call. I changed and packed and even checked my email. Then I called and my Mom told me that my Memere had passed away that morning, and that she was so sorry that she didn't call earlier but she wanted me to not worry about that, and to do so well at my interview. So we talked for a while about Memere and about her dying and about my interview and I held it together pretty well but as soon as I hung up the phone I totally lost it.
Seriously lost it. I was so afraid the girls were going to walk in and see this mess of a person on their floor, but I didn't really care either. Because that's what you do when your Memere dies.
I have tried to think about, talk about, write about all the emotions that have been running through me since then but I just can't. Its such a mix. Sadness, of course. I miss her, not that I saw her that often, but in that I know that there is this little empty part of my life now where she used to be. And where she will never be again. Relief, that she's not fighting or suffering any more. Graditute that she was my Memere, and that the end was easy. But the biggest one, the one I'm trying to push out the most is guilt. Why didn't I call her more often? Why didn't I go visit more? Why haven't scientists cured cancer yet? Why haven't I cured cancer yet? And most often: Why the hell didn't I skip that stupid interview and go to Florida?
The worst part is that my whole family knows this is how I feel and is, as a result, being so goddamn nice. Telling me how proud they are of me and how I made the right choice to go and how that's what my Memere would have wanted. But they all got to say their goodbyes. They got to hold her hand and tell her that they love her. She saw them there, she knew they were there, and she knew I was not. And that makes me feel god damn awful. And I'm so afriad that I'm going to feel like this for a long long time because there is no closure here, there is no way for me to deal with this except to deal with it. And that sucks.
It comes down to is this: I'd better fucking get in to grad school.
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