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Marjorie
My grandmother believed in reincarnation
When my father was young, she told him that after she died, he could find her in the birds
So sometimes when the dawn slows its dance and invites me into the audience, I watch the birds
I try to hear her in their songs,
Their scriptless, worldless poems about the sunrise,
Recited for anyone who’ll stop to listen on their way to work
And sometimes I almost hear her voice, somewhere around a high E flat
I’ve never heard her voice but I just know in my heart she sounds like sunshine
Her name was Marjorie
She would have wanted me to call her Mormor, because of her Swedish descent
I never met her, but she sounds like an angel
She loved my grandfather more than you could ever hope to love anyone
My grandfather, a grumpy, hardened war vet
My grandfather, who loved his steak so well-done that it was almost as tough as he was
My grandfather was the love of her life, and she was his
My father says Mormor was a dream when she sat at the piano
Her hands would dance to intricate white and black choreography
Ligaments and tendons striking perfect chords under her skin
They said she had a gift
Men in suits with trimmed moustaches invited her to travel the country and dance upon piano keys for a living
She said no
She wanted to be with my Grandpa instead
She gave up her dream for six of his babies
Three with pink socks and three with blue
The three girls were first, and my father was something of a miracle to my grandfather
He wasn’t the only boy, but he was “the Boy”
My father was the junior set of hands in my grandfather’s household
Fixing things, building things, tearing things apart
The first in line to his throne, the leader of the pack
I don’t think they knew how fast that throne would crumble
Mormor had some kind of cancer
I’ve never learned what kind, maybe ovarian or cervical, some cancer a man could never understand
My grandfather didn’t know until she was dead
She never told him
She wanted him to be happy until the last possible second
She only told my aunt, who was studying to be a nurse at the time
And though she never told my father, he knew she was going, from the way she talked about death
She would tell him to look for her in the birds after she was gone
She was gone soon
I wonder if my grandpa was by her side as she took her dying breath
Such a small movement of air through her lungs but it still caused a hurricane inside him
He boarded all the windows shut and hid behind the rain
He was never the same again
My dad was only seventeen, the same age I am now
Kids laughed at him
“How’s your mom?”
“She’s dead.”
He says it didn’t get to him
I know he’s lying
Mormor was the only thing that held that family together
After she left, her children left, too
They couldn’t stand to live with my grandpa, with his windows closed so tight
They all scattered across the country like seeds of a dandelion
One to Phoenix, one to Jersey, one to Tampa Bay
Siblings became nothing but a Facebook friend to each other
They would all be strangers if they sat in front of me
I hardly ever even saw my grandfather
I remember that he bought Sam’s Cola instead of Coke
And that he briefly had a girlfriend named Dolly, who smelled like hair products
And that he wore brown leather shoes, the kind old men wear
And that when I saw him three years ago in his hospital bed, he looked more like a cadaver than a human being
He died in 2012, leaving behind 19 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren
I look for him in the birds, too
But not that many birds like their steak well-done
So here I sit, sweeping grey dust off the black and white keys of my piano
Banging out unrehearsed melodies
Hoping a bird named Marjorie will perch on my windowsill and duet with me, singing her beautiful warbled songs
No longer confined to the notes on a page
Nothing but the modest notes of her heart’s song
And at the end of our song, I’ll tell her to go, knowing that she is no longer confined to anything
Knowing that she is finally free to fly
