The following essay by Ann Ritter is one of those experiences whose memory stays with you for life.
The details speak for themselves. Enjoy....
The details speak for themselves. Enjoy....
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Travel
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| iStock |
by Ann Ritter
My grandmother died with my name in her
hand.
The heart attack hit at the counter of an
ordinary motel café. It was an August morning; she was traveling home from a
visit to family in coastal Virginia.
Later that day, she would have arrived with gifts for all of us: plastic
name-tag pins.
One year before, she and I each took our
first plane trip. Mine was to New York with my
parents, hers to Texas
to see her oldest living grandchild graduate from college. I asked her if she
was afraid of flying, to be so high off the ground. She said, no, she was
excited to try something new. I told her I was petrified. Her flight was smooth
and full of sunshine, mine plagued by storm winds, lightning, and repeated circling
of the airport before we could land. I was afraid the plane would run out of
gas.
Soon after our trips, I began fifth grade.
I learned of Icarus and wrote a report on Pompeii—ordinary
people caught and held forever in their last actions by volcanic ash.
Grandmother had risen from breakfast, as
usual a little short of breath. With coin purse in hand, she arrived at the
counter and saw the display. To the sales clerk, she praised the motel’s grits
for its lack of lumps as she pulled each name from the revolving rack. She had
just reached Ann with no “e.” A sharp pain took her breath, turned her lips
blue, sent her body to the floor like a stone. The medics uncurled her fingers to
see the red pin resting just so. Ann.
“You didn’t ask her to come with you if you
didn’t mean it,” said the niece who accompanied her on that last trip. “She
would say, ‘Just give me an hour to pack.’”
At 78, Grandmother had never learned to
drive. But she loved to go, and because of this, was “sought after” by many of
us as a traveling companion.
“I thought she would live forever,” the
niece said.
So did I. To this day, I miss her, still.
I always will be uneasy in the air. But
fear will not keep me at home. I am propelled by Grandmother’s last image she
saw in her mortal life: Ann.
I journey to Peru,
Ireland’s West coast, the
Olympic Peninsula, California, the deserts of New Mexico. On every day, through each
place, I travel with her heart.
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Essay, copyright Ann Ritter, all rights reserved.
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