Chapter 11
"Des? Destiny, honey…."
My body arches itself into a sleepy stretch, and I jerk awake when my notebook hits the floor with a splat. The rock, I think in my half-awake haze, I've still got the rock; but it's only my pen, gripped so tightly in my hand that my fingernails are digging into my palm. Even as the dream slips away and reality takes over, though, pieces of it begin to fall into place in my conscious brain. I wipe my eyes and blink at Mom, who is crouching in front of the stiff waiting room chair that I dozed off in.
"Mom?" I croak, feeling sick at the look on her face and willing time to linger for a bit in those few seconds before she tells me what I already know.
"He's gone," she whispers. "Grandpa passed just a little while ago."
I lean forward and take her hand. "I'm sorry," I whisper, a futile attempt at keeping the moment peaceful in the midst of chatting nurses, beeping instruments, and ringing phones.
She nods and leans her face into her hand to wipe her eyes. "I know." I bend forward to pick my notebook off the floor when Mom stands up. "He was peaceful at the end," she tells me as I stand, and we ease our way up the hallway. "Grandma was with him, and Daddy, and Uncle John, and Uncle Thomas."
I nod and swallow. "That's good," I offer, and it feels as lame as it sounds.
"They left, I told them to head back to Uncle John's house. Do you want to see him?" she asks. "Do you want to see Grandpa? Say goodbye? They haven't moved him out of the room yet."
I brush my hair off of my shoulder and glance at Mom. "Yeah? Can I?" Not entirely sure that I want to, I follow my instincts and let Mom lead me to the room where my family has kept a vigil for the past three days, since Grandpa had his stroke.
"Do you want me to come in with you?" Mom asks, almost rhetorically, as she steps into the room with me, but I shake my head. "You're sure?" She sounds skeptical, so I nod again.
"I'll be okay," I assure her.
Mom takes a last look into the darkened room before sighing and rubbing my arm. "I'll be right out here."
My footsteps fall quietly on the white linoleum floor as I inch toward the bed. I've never seen a dead person up close. No, that isn't true-I had been to two viewings in my life, both with open coffins. But there's something different about approaching somebody who has just died; somebody whose bed still holds the warmth of the last moments of their life.
"Hi, Grandpa," I say, startled at my own hoarse voice. His hand is cool in my own, and I have the unnerving urge to rub it to make it warmer. "I know you're in heaven now," I tell him. What else do you say to someone who isn't there anymore? I lower myself onto the stool that was left by the bedside, and I stare at him, searching for something familiar, but all I can see is the lifeless body of an old man I hadn't really known too well.
The silence around me is nearly palpable, and the shaky breath I draw in seems to pull half of the air in the room into me. Is part of Grandpa still lingering in that air? Is he inside of me now, too? I blink and shake off my ridiculous thoughts.
"Oh, I'm sorry!"
I look up at the nurse at the foot of the bed, who apparently entered the room without realizing somebody was lurking in the corner.
She has her hand on her chest and a startled look on her face. "I'm so sorry," she repeats, "I didn't know someone was still here."
"It's okay," I tell her. "I was just about to leave."
She looks down at Grandpa as she gathers up some supplies that had been left near the bed. "How old was he, if you don't mind my asking?"
I smile. "Ninety-three." I wish he could have lived even longer, I want to add. But when you're thirteen, I guess it feels like there will always be time for whatever you think you need to do. There's always tomorrow.
The nurse, who I don't recognize as one of the ones who had been around for the past few days, picks up Grandpa's chart. "I have all of his books," she says with a hint of admiration. "I read them all."
I'm too ashamed to admit that I finally read one of my grandfather's novels – his first and best-known one – only two days earlier.
"Was this really his real name?" she asks.
I nod. "Yeah, that was his name." Ponyboy Michael Curtis. Brother, father, uncle, grandpa, great-grandpa … friend. I stand up to leave, but pause just past the foot of the bed. "Do you…do you think people who die ever…."
The nurse turns to look at me. "Ever what, honey?"
I feel kind of stupid, but I need to ask, and she seems like as good a person as any. "Do you think they ever say goodbye to people they know?" She gives me a slightly quizzical look. "Like, I don't know—in dreams, or something? Before they…move on?"
The nurse gives a sympathetic smile. "I don't know, honey. I don't know."
#
It isn't fair. I want it to be real so bad. My siblings and cousins, all the ones who'd traveled with Grandpa and spent one-on-one time with him over the years, are plugging along just fine, smiling and laughing and enjoying each other's company as we all begin coming together in preparation for the viewing and funeral. Sure, they're sad that Grandpa is gone, but as they talk about all the stuff they remember about him, the things they experienced with him, they have something to hold on to, even as they let go.
For me, it's different.
In the days leading up to the funeral, I can't get that dream out of my head. Not only that, but I can't explain it to anyone, either. I mean, I try, but in the light of reality it just comes out sounding like a goofy dream where I didn't even realize the boy I had befriended was my own grandfather. But that was typical of any old dream, right? Where the stuff you know in real life kind of shifts to the back burner. It had just been a regular dream. Not an adventure, not a message, not anything real.
Certainly not something that should have me crying myself to sleep every night, missing the boy who grew into the man who was largely responsible for my existence. Missing my friend. The warmth of his smile, the sound of his voice, the quiet wisdom that glowed from inside of him, even the brotherly way he teased me about my goofy quirks and naïve passions-I miss Ponyboy so much, it physically hurts. But is it him that I miss, or a version of him I created in my own mind after reading the book he wrote about one of the most influential weeks of his own life?
My family, I realize, doesn't seem to recognize the depth of my grief. After all, why should they? They know that I'd barely known him, and they'd seen that I'd had little interest in getting to know him better when he was alive. Why should a ten minute nap in a hospital waiting room have changed any of that? Yet there I am, crumbling apart inside from a pain that I could only have explained to one friend who is two generations and a lifetime away from me-Ponyboy.
And then, without warning, without explanation, I wake up one morning, and all of the pain and all of the feelings have just disappeared. Evaporated. Gone.
And that devastates me to a level that the grief never even touched.
#
The plan is to bury Grandpa in his hometown, in the cemetery where his parents and brothers are buried. Most of us have to travel there. When he had his stroke, Grandpa was living a few hours away from us, several hundred miles outside of Oklahoma. We've got phone calls to make, bags to pack, airports to wait in, and cars to rent. It's a whirlwind of activity, those days before the funeral, and through it all, I pick up the book at least a dozen times, look at the cover, and put it back down. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to read it again.
By the time the plane touches down the morning of the viewing, I've gone numb.
Maybe it's too much to process, or maybe I've accepted that he's gone, or maybe—and this is what scares me the most—maybe the memories and the connection I made with Grandpa—with Ponyboy—are simply fading away, the way dreams do after you wake up. Maybe it was just a dream, and that's all it will ever have been.
After getting ourselves showered and dressed in the hotel room, my parents and I meet up with my sisters for dinner before heading to the funeral home. It's mostly family there. I mean, how many of your old buddies are still around to come to your funeral when you live into your nineties? But there are also some other people I don't recognize, and my mom tells me they're people that Grandpa knew professionally. Editors, publishers, stuff like that.
The casket is open, but I can't bring myself to walk over to it. I tell myself that it's because I already saw him in the hospital, but part of me wonders if it's really because I'm afraid. What if looking at him again takes me another million miles away from the dream? What if it makes me even more numb than I already feel?
What if I never feel anything real ever again for the sweet, cool, tough-as-nails boy who tried to teach me how to tell a story that was worthy of being told?
#
Beads of sweat roll down my back as we stand around the casket that's suspended across boards above a hole in the ground. There's a minister reading words from a bible, but I'm not really listening to him. Even though I'm wearing a lightweight skirt and a loose blouse and sandals, the heat is stifling.
My gaze moves across the faces around me and I wonder what they're thinking. Is anyone wondering what kind of food is going to be set out for the buffet lunch afterward? Thinking about taking another shower back at the hotel room? Wishing they'd worn the bra that doesn't have the itchy tag right under the strap? Because those are all of the things that are going through my head. I'm not looking at the box in front of me, not thinking about what's inside of it. I'm just hoping we leave before it gets put down into the ground.
It doesn't last long, but after the minister finishes his sermon, everyone starts mingling around, consoling one another and talking. I'm suffocating, I realize, suffocating from the heat and the people and the numbness. I have to get away.
Slowly, I wander along the row of old headstones. Some have flags and flowers and shrubs set around them, while others are surrounded by only grass. A few have little trinkets in front of them or next to them: gifts offered by a visiting wife or husband or child to somebody who left them too soon.
And then, there's a particular headstone in front of me, and my mouth goes dry as my heart begins to race and my hands start to shake. Carved in simple block letters on the small, unadorned headstone are the words Sarah Jean Curtis, 1927-1966. Beloved wife and mother.
"That was going to be your name, you know."
My whole body startles at my father's words, but he doesn't seem to notice. "What?" I say.
He moves forward to stand next to me. "She was Grandpa's mother. When we found out you were a girl, and we knew you'd be our last, I thought it would be nice to name you after my dad's mother." He smiles at the memory of it. "He said no, though. When I handed you to Grandpa in the hospital and told him what your name was going to be, he said no, don't do that. She's got to be her own person. 'This girl," dad remembers aloud, setting a hand on my shoulder and giving it a squeeze, "this girl is destined for great things. She needs a name that fits her. Something as original as she is.' And, well, there it is." He smiles at me. "Grandpa named you Destiny."
I swallow the lump that's forming in my throat and try to do a speed check of every file my brain has stored away. I can't find it. I don't think …. "I don't think I knew that," I say.
Dad shrugs. "I never told you. In fact, I'd almost forgotten until now."
The dream is back again so clear, I can almost hear his voice: How about Sarah? You kind of look like a Sarah. The irony of it, the joke behind it, almost makes me laugh, but now the pain is inching its way back. Was it real, or was it a figment of my imagination? A spark of anger crackles inside of me. If it was real, why would he leave me here like this, wondering?
"Des?"
My dad is watching me and rubbing my arm. I realize I must have spaced out for a second. I lick my lips and swallow, trying to force that lump to dissolve away. And then, with a start, as I look at my dad, I realize how very much he resembles his father. Not the one from the coffin, though. The one from all the old pictures; the one with his hair greased back, standing and smiling next to another handsome boy in front of a gas station pump. The one from my dream.
I look away.
The grave that lays before us is unkempt, I notice. With Grandpa living so far away, and no family left back in his hometown, the only caretakers are the ones who are hired to cut the grass. Up near the headstone, though, some longer grass and weeds have taken over. All at once, I'm overcome by a compulsion to make my great-grandmother's grave look less forgotten.
My father joins me, and together we kneel by the headstone and begin pulling out weeds and wiping stray dirt from the crevices of her etched-in name. Aside from the rustling we're making with the weeds and our breathing, it's quiet. Peaceful. Nice.
Dad comes across the first rock.
"Look at this," he says, holding it up. "Looks like some type of rose quartz." When I raise an eyebrow at him, he explains, "I had a few geology classes in college. Thought about majoring in it." He sets the rock up against the headstone.
Within a minute, I find another one-a pure white, silky smooth specimen. "Here's another one," I say, and as I'm handing it to Dad, I see a dark mark on the other side of it. "What's that?" We turn it over and find, scrawled in fading black marker, the words Happy Birthday Mom, love Ponyboy, 1982.
I'm still staring in disbelief when Dad grabs up the first rock and flips it over. Miss you, love you, Ponyboy. "Dad must have left them here," Dad says, looking astonished at this insight into his father. "I remember him visiting about once a year for a while to see old friends and their families. I just … I had no idea." His eyes well up with tears, and I think we're both struck by the simple beauty of these rocks and their messages.
And then, it finally hits me, and I'm clawing through the weeds like a crazy person. I find and cast aside two more rocks, and my heart is sinking, before I finally see it. The sun glints off the iridescent colors like it hasn't been touched in a million years. My vision blurs when I gingerly pick it up with shaking hands. It looks exactly the same. I mean, exactly. This is the rock from my dream.
I swipe my hand across my eyes, take a deep breath, and turn it over.
To Sarah Jean Curtis. All of my love, Ponyboy.