To Leave Something Behind
Last November I was in the library listening to a song a friend recommended. It was called “To Leave Something Behind.” It’s a song from a father to son about finding what is important in life.
I listened closely to the lyrics. Like many, I’m chasing a lot of different things hoping to catch one that’s worthwhile.
New city. New job. New everything. Surely something worth chasing is hidden here somewhere.
The songwriter told me of a similar search for significance, but his story was interrupted before I could hear the conclusion. My mom called, and when she said my name her voice sounded just like I imagined it would. My grandmother, who suffered from dementia for several years, had passed away.
When my grandmother died, she left a lot of stuff behind. A LOT of stuff. Her descendants have been sifting through it all for the past nine months, picking out keepsakes for themselves.
She left old toys, wrinkled UNO cards and ancient board games whose pieces have long been lost to the forgotten fissures between couch cushions.
She left VHS tapes of Andy Griffith and partly-recorded movies she watched on TV.
She left pitchers, plates and silverware. She left pots and pans and every kind of cooking equipment imaginable. I recently adopted much of it for my new kitchen. If she could have known the sad culinary concoctions they now produce, she would have destroyed them in her dying breath.
She left behind a whole host of eclectic angel statuettes riddled throughout her house, proclaiming good news of great joy.
She left behind a mound of jewelry that still smells like her, and she left behind enough quilts for each one of us.
She left behind a village of creepy baby dolls that she collected. After her death, I pushed for a murder investigation. Those dolls were the prime suspects. No one has taken the dolls yet.
She left behind a huge Magnavox TV and a Sega Genesis in the basement that I spent hours and hours staring at as a kid.
She left behind a little statue of a naked lady that posed promiscuously in her living room during my adolescence. It’s the only thing I spent more hours staring at than the Magnavox.
She left behind an attic full of orange egg-shell mattresses. She would be happy to know my roommate has slept on one of them for the past month while he looks for a bed.
And the list goes on and on and on. She left so many things behind that we will be dealing her stuff for years to come.
A few weeks ago, the family gathered for our annual Labor Day reunion and all the siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles sifted through piles of Grandmother’s stuff picking out things to remember her by. We talked and laughed and fought over her things, telling stories that these relics evoked as we did.
Like the summer 10 years ago when the cousins played Junior Monopoly in Grandmother’s kitchen for hours every Sunday while she baked bread.
And when Grandmother stopped baking to play with us, she preferred UNO because it was one of the only games she knew how to play.
We remembered laying in the living room and watching parts of old recorded movies with her, poking fun at the cheesy, dated commercials throughout. The second half of Swiss Family Robinson remains one of my favorites because of her.
We talked about the food she made, food that we haven’t tasted in years and wish so badly that we could have her cook for us again.
We told stories about her outfits and her weird obsessions and about the hours we spent together playing Sonic the Hedgehog on the Magnavox in her basement.
And we remembered the egg-shell mattresses she laid at the foot of her bed when we stayed the night, never noticing how it got harder and harder for her to climb the attic stairs. And we remembered how she tucked each one of us in and kissed us on the cheek like only she could. And then after wiping off the kiss residue with the edge of the tightly tucked quilt, she prayed with us. Her prayers were always long and boring, but we loved them because they were real and they were for us.
And the more we rummaged through her stuff and talked about her and her house, the more we realized that Grandmother’s whole life was an attempt to leave something behind.
But it wasn’t the jewelry or the creepy baby dolls she collected from God knows where. It wasn’t the VHS tapes of 1970’s movies or her angelic statuettes. It wasn’t even her world-famous sourdough bread.
It was us. She was leaving behind a family.
Everything my grandmother did was for that purpose. All the trinkets, all the stuff. She strategically manipulated all of it to bring us together as a family. Her house was riddled with these lovingly placed booby traps (the most literal being the naked statue).
She was hoping to ensnare us long enough to learn to love each other. It was a meticulously planned sabotage in an effort to leave behind a legacy of love.
And her plan worked. I observed my family closely that weekend, and I basked in the success she achieved. I could see Grandmother in the way we laughed and fought and played. Every joke, every game, every hug had a piece of her in it.
And because of her pain-staking efforts to grow a family, I now have one of the best a boy could ask for. We aren’t perfect, but we are bonded to one another forever. Grandmother may be gone, but she left behind something big and beautiful, and it will live on far longer than she.
I recently sat down and finished the song that her death interrupted. The last stanza goes like this.
Oh money is free but love costs more than our bread
And the ceiling is hard to reach
When my son is a man he will know what I meant
I was just trying to leave something behind
Now that I’m grown, I’m starting to know what Grandmother meant when she talked about family and love. She prayed every day that God would keep us together, and sometimes I rolled my eyes. It seemed silly at the time.
But, in many ways, her prayer has now become my prayer. I’ve found at least one thing that is worth chasing and one thing worth leaving behind when I’m gone. And amidst all the trinkets and keepsakes, it is the one thing she really meant to leave behind for me.
