Nana

Nana

No one cried but me.
I've never been to a funeral before,
But somehow I knew the atmosphere didn't quite fit,
It was too restless, too brisk, too angry for a funeral.
Yet I felt hopeless,
Drowned in self-pity and the kind of anguish only ignorant, young people can feel.
I was young,
I didn't know you.
I knew you were dying,
But I didn't know you as my Nana.
I wasn't allowed to call you that.
That name was reserved for the cousins, all fair haired with blue eyes.
My eyes were too dark, so was my hair.
Dad once said that I reminded you of your mother, and you hated her.
I hate mine too. I think.
I called you Grandma Reese in the letters that I wrote to you.
I still have one, its unfinished and never sent,
Because you died.
No one understood my reaction,
But that's okay, the family doesn't understand me even now.
I only have one memory of you, maybe two.
The first is when we drove down, just me and Dad and brother, all the way down to your house in North Carolina,
You showed me wedding pictures of Mom and Dad,
I've never seen them before and I wondered why we didn't have any hanging up at home.
You taught me some piano, on the piano that you gave us,
I don't remember how to play, and the piano has been gone for a long time.
Grandpa was an artist, you showed us his paintings,
I think Brother must be like him.
But you were the writer,
Like me and sometimes Dad.
The second is when you gave me a doll when we moved.
I played with her a lot,
Then I pulled off her little rubber head and forgot that the doll meant something.
The new wife said Dad read my poem aloud,
The one I wrote for you.
I cried when I wrote that poem, because I had this sense you were going to die,
And I was right.
I cried when the wife told me,
I cried when they buried you next to Grandpa, next to Uncle Bill whom I've never met,
Because he died of Leukemia and no one talks about him.
He's just a shadow in the old photographs, like grandpa, and eventually you.
Mom said you never liked her,
She used that excuse for why no one liked me.
But it's certainly true.
Four people cried at the funeral: me, Aunt – presumably for relief, Cousin – for the grandpa he never met, the one I don't remember; and God too,
I know, because it started to rain.
I think when God cries, it comes out like rain.
Rain makes people sad, but I like to dance in it.
I didn't dance at your funeral.
Dad gave me your pearls,
I've always loved pearls,
I wore them to the Nutcracker.
I wonder where you are, and maybe one day I'll know,
I also wonder, if you loved me,
If you did, can I call you Nana now?