something beautiful and something broken

my Nana died. i haven't spoken to her in many years, because she couldn't speak to me without making it miserable, a constant rehashing of my father and if he did or did not do what my sister says he did. and my choices. and my father. and my sister. and like that. i let her go, and with the exception of two phone calls over the years, she let me go too. she held on to my father. i am the mother of children, and although i should not, i understand. ' this situation ' is full of shoulds.  it has to be punctuated this way to perhaps and hopefully get across some of the strangeness and some of the delineations: involving family member X but not O, including the opinion of H and L but definitely not X, this way, " we " ( the family ) all know about it, extended, but only " us " know about it.   And one day the writer said when everyone is dead I'll write all about it. for now, it's simply enough to know that my Nana died. she knitted me a pink sweater with beautiful loops when i was three? four? and my sister, her namesake. my sister. her namesake. a sigh that goes on forever. she wrote me letters. she visited over summers, her broad intelligent face beaming and reeking of powder and department stores.  she dressed in skirts and slight heels, slacks but never jeans.  she wore jewelry. she was friendly with George Bush Sr. and the archbishop.  she was a lawyer as a young woman in Jackson, Mississippi, when women- mothers- were not supposed to be anything more than women, mothers.  she married my Grandfather and they had four children and my Grandfather was Supreme Court Justice and fought for civil rights. He was in a wheelchair. He had polio as a young man. He died when my father was a young man.  My Nana was reserved to the point of secretive while appearing ebullient and outgoing. She talked a blue streak. She had an accent as thick as the powder on her cheeks. My Nana said my name like this: Mahhgie Mhaay.  My Nana had three boys and they were tall and muscular and handsome and genius and stood next to their sister Ruby ( hi Aunt Ruby- she became, to my astonishment, a follower of my blog a year or so ago ) in smart lines with black shoes and caps and their beautiful faces shining to be photographed.  My Nana had three boys and they were mentally ill.  My Nana never, to my knowledge, said the words mentally ill in relation to her family.  My Nana was the mother of my Aunt Ruby who is gorgeous and traveled the country singing opera and who I resemble but in my opinion not enough. My Nana wore her grey hair in bouncy waves at the bottom, cut higher than shoulder and shorter than chin.  My Nana lived later in Boston and has now died in Boston in her eighties after a broken hip.  

When someone dies and all you can think is I wish it could have been different it hurts in a different way than it would have. Even if you know it couldn't have been.