Part Two: Death Quips and Dating Tips

By: Christine Sweeney

This is part of a three-part series on the writer’s grandmother. Part One Part Three

“What are we going to do with you and your brother? I want to go to your wedding!”

I thought staying single and never meeting anyone I was actually interested in (by choice? By chance? I can’t say.) would keep my grandmother alive. A reason for her to hold on another year, another decade. Ya know, because of unfinished business.

“Is there anyone you should tell me about? Who are you with right now?” No. No one. No one to Zoom home about.

I’m not a big crier but nothing brought on tears like having one of our long calls, an emotionally unavailable man by my side. Nanny would tell me a story I’d heard over and over again about her 60-year relationship (no, courtship. He never stopped courting her.) with my grandfather. It proves that: 1) love exists, 2) I won’t find it. Not at this rate. So, when she’d tell me about the letters he sent her from a submarine, or the time they were driving home from the dentist and saw a sign for a travel agency about which she remarked, “I’ve never been on a cruise ship.” and in response, he u-turned and bought two tickets for the transatlantic Queen Elizabeth 2, it was painful to hear.

On the day she died, I was getting ready for a date. Dad called and he never calls. Normally, he texts. The call was a Death Knell. “Nanny is with your grandfather now.” That man is so good at giving bad news. At being direct, yet human.

I had been crying on and off for days. I’d been waiting for this call, especially after she stopped eating.

He gave the news. I absorbed it. My mom leaned over my dad’s shoulder in tears on my screen. Her tears brought on my tears. We drained our ducts. 

“So. What will you do now?”

“I was supposed to meet someone.”

“A close friend?”

“Well, no. I don’t know them at all… it’s a date.”

“Oh! Haha, awww, baby,” My mother’s tears lunge towards laughter.

“You know you’re never supposed to go on a date on Valentine’s Day, and I suppose when someone dies,” Dad quips.

I don’t know. I need to process.

“I bet Nanny planned this,” says my mom.

“Yeah, she planned that she’d die on the day of your first date with this guy so you’d talk about her,” adds dad.

“I haven’t laughed in two days. Thank you,” says my mom.

The only thing more distant from death than a date with a stranger is a date with taxes. The next day I had a meeting with my accounant, who apparently has replaced my grandmother in imploring me to find someone. “Your taxes would be easier if you were married,” he says, “Just get married. It’s quite easy in Germany.”