"everybody knows it is impossible for me to forget you"
a letter to grandma inspired by a letter from grandma (tw: grief/loss)
tw: this is a piece about grief/loss, proceed with caution!
A month ago, I told myself I would start writing a new Substack piece about grief, how you think going through it once will make the second time around easier, and how that is completely, utterly untrue because no two experiences with grief are mirrors, and how processing the death of a loved one from abroad brews guilt and selfishness. I told myself I would write about how, when I read and signed the company handbook two years ago, I never thought I would have to use “Bereavement Leave,” and how I spent the first half of the first week of March using two of my three allotted days, aimlessly wandering around London, perusing in and out of shops knowing that I was not going to buy anything, smiling at the sight of grandmothers and their grandchildren, telling white lies when the barista and record shop worker asked how my day was going, and returning home by 3 'o’clock in the afternoon, where I would run out of distractions and, for once, sit in true boredom. I told myself I would write about how the grief-induced-depression-induced-boredom inadvertently led to the creation of a video that I ended up sharing for the world to see, and how I would not let myself leave my laptop until the video was completely done, and how I felt a strange sense of FOMO knowing that I would have to attend a funeral on Zoom because of a pending visa application. But then I didn’t write anything at all.
And then two more sunny Sundays passed and two more unexpected events occurred: my coworker — and my friend — was let go, and after receiving her “goodbye” email I received another that there was an issue with my visa application. I had 6 days to depart the U.K. My Great Grandma’s memorial service was in 7 days. I booked a last minute flight from London to San Francisco. It’s funny, how things seemingly do not work out until suddenly they do.
Following a long week in the office without my coworker’s silly stories and welcomed midday distractions and the gain of a spur-of-the-moment five day trip back to California, I spent a weekend in the English countryside, in the tiny town where my partner is from. I found myself welling up at a selection of shortbread in an organic farm shop — yes, shortbread cookies — because I realised that it was the first time I would return home where I did not need to pack a box of shortbread cookies in my carry on, because it was the first time I would return home where my Grandma would not be there to receive them. As I walked to the check out till, I told myself I would finally start writing my hypothetical Substack piece, a piece which would begin with myself staring at a box of cookies while on the verge of tears. I would point out that my last piece was titled “lemon shortbread bows and cats” and while the title was not directly correlated to my Grandma, the piece included a sentence about her along with a photo, and then when I would let my mom know I published a new piece I’d receive a text back many hours later that would result in a FaceTime call from the Emergency Room, where my Grandma and I would have our last ever conversation, if you could even call it that. She was nonverbal and wearing an oxygen mask as I was holding back tears, showing her the pixelated flowers across my living room trying to think what I could possibly say in these last moments we would share together from opposite ends of the globe. My mom kept repeatedly urging me to “tell Grandma you love her” while reassuring my Grandma not to worry because “Tatum will visit soon” and while I did manage to croak the little words that could escape my mouth, “I love you Grandma,” and “look at these flowers, Grandma,” what remained after ending the call was a lump in my throat that seems to return whenever I write or talk or think about that very moment.
And then the Thursday after I cried in the cookie aisle I was on a ten and a half hour flight from London to California, nervous because of my visa (or lack thereof), nervous because I was going to see some family members I had not seen in seven years, and nervous to re-process the fact that my Great Grandma is gone. It is one thing, knowing someone you hold close will not be there when you eventually return home, but it is another thing, actually returning to your house to see enough florals and sympathy cards and framed photos to fill an entire Hallmark shop. These days, for better or for worse, it seems as though uncertainty awaits me and I suppose I should just let myself revel in it.
I am 27, which — I think — means that it is now officially considered normal scroll past an engagement, a new home, or a pregnancy announcement without feeling the need to screenshot it and send it to your high school group chat. When I reunited with my 27 year old cousin — the cousin I grew up closest with — who now has an 18 month old baby boy, I quickly realized that there was nothing to be nervous about. Our dynamic was the same, and her child is absolutely adorable. All that has changed is an extra seat at the table and an extra bag to carry around. “This is my cousin Tatum,” she told him. “She makes ootds on Tiktok!” He wrapped his tiny hand around my finger and I cried inside. My other cousin, who is 30, has two children now — an eight month old and a four year old — and seeing my cousin’s bright smile and ability to light up any room she walks into reflected into her sunflower of a daughter made me re-think a lot of my preconceived notions about children and life. I concluded that if I ever have a child I think I would not care about anything else in the entire world.
Two days later — Saturday — was the memorial service. I try to consciously use the words ‘memorial service’ because I do not like the connotations of the word ‘funeral.’ The word ‘funeral’ comes from the latin word ‘funus’ which translates to ‘death’ or ‘corpse,’ but isn’t the point of a memorial service to celebrate one’s life and one’s impact, rather than speak about their death in the present tense?
My mom, her sisters, my Lola, and I showed up an hour early to the mortuary (another word I am not particularly fond of due to its phonetic morbidity). It felt like a building that was stuck in the 2000s in its all of its beige decorum and dusty plastic mahogany roses and barely-there lighting, so I was tasked with creating bouquets of flowers to brighten up the space. I went for yellow roses (Grandma’s favorite), bright pink carnations, baby’s breath, and orange tulips (my dad insisted on adding some “Dutch-ness” to the bouquets and added three tulip bunches to the basket). We also had posterboard-sized collages of my Grandma and her family, flower arrangements sent from all across the globe, and stacks of prayer cards with my Grandma’s portrait on its top side. As we were setting up, a ten minute slideshow played on loop. I took a photo of my mom, her sisters, and my Lola, and a single photo of my Grandma wearing a blue dress timed up perfectly with the shot. Then the sound of strings and melodies written in minor chords filled the room and I had to step outside because, for some reason, I did not want to let myself cry, not just yet.
During the service, my auntie made a speech. She, along with my uncle and my cousins and their children, came all the way from Hawai’i. There are 12 of them in total. My aunt explained that this particular family trip to California was meant to be a “Hello” — where Grandma would finally meet her great great grandchildren — and within the span of a ten minute FaceTime call, their “Hello” became a “Goodbye.” My aunt told stories of Grandma, some which I knew, like the fact that, every night after dinner, she would make my mom and her sisters walk around the house balancing an encyclopedia on their heads for 30 minutes in the name of posture and elegance, but many other stories were new to me. We were asked to describe Grandma in one word, and hearing all of the different adjectives from family and friends and acquaintances made me realize all of the different versions of Grandma that everyone in the room had the honor of knowing. Paisley, my best friend from Kindergarten, gave me a hug and a bouquet of what I have decided are my new favorite flowers — anemones — they were a bright magenta, tied together with eucalyptus and a green striped bow. I brought the ribbon back to London with me.
Following the memorial service, I practically gave up on writing this alleged Substack piece because the last thing I wanted was to feel like a dark cloud casting its shadow over your inbox. I instead started writing a draft about the importance of stories, how we need to tell our stories because one day our stories is all we will have of one another. Yesterday, my dad learned that my dream dog to own is a dalmatian, and then when I said “I heard they can be intense” I learned that perhaps they are not, because my dad said “They’re really nice dogs, actually” then told me that he had a dalmatian when he was little and living in Utrecht. Her name was Cora and she was so tall that she could open the front door and let herself outside whenever she needed to. When I was younger I learned that the patch of soft skin on my Dad’s forearm was not from a wrestling fight with a crocodile, but rather a removed tattoo of an ex girlfriend’s name and somewhere between the shock on my little face when I saw the “Nine West” logo on the bottom of my mom’s alleged crocodile-shoes-from-dads-fight and realizing that the dog I have always wanted is the same kind of dog my dad used to have, I came to understand that we only know someone as much as we ask someone. It is interesting, the things we choose to share with others, and the things we choose to withhold until asked. Or until our six year old daughter finds her mom’s faux crocodile-skin shoe from Nine West.
This morning, I came across an infographic that explained how Gen-Z is the most stressed out generation, listing finances, job security, and the current climate of the world as the main causes of stress. I swiped through the post and thought that all of it was obvious, and it felt silly to even write it out and share it on social media, because this is all known information. Most conversations with friends involve some degree of complaints about being underpaid and overworked, and most of those conversations take place while buying a coffee and a pastry, because we must treat ourselves in order to cope with the state of the world, and I know this all sounds quite depressing but what I will say is that I am a dreamer, and I am lucky to be surrounded by dreamers, and despite the weight of being a part of — and a contributor to — the most stressed out generation, I still allow myself to dream big. It is what gives me hope.
The last month has been filled with reflection, reflection over the things I tend to stress about and reflection over how minute they feel in comparison to the death of a loved one. “I have concluded that the most important thing to me is proximity to my family,” I wrote in my journal. This is the first time I have moved houses without packing until a week beforehand, and I have moved 21 times in my 27 years of being. I am trying not to take my office stress home and I am trying not to point out that dishes need to be done or that laundry needs to be put away or that there is dust on the bedroom window that is making me sneeze. On the days I had off work, meandering around East London, the minor day-to-day stressors suddenly became the least of my worries. At this point in time, I am not even 100% sure if I will be allowed back in the U.K. when I return next week*, but at least I got to arrange yellow and pink and orange flowers into empty jam jars, and at least I got to reunite with my cousins who I have not seen in seven years, and at least I got to go on a morning pastry and coffee run with my dad and my little brother to buy an excessive amount of chocolate and almond and plain croissants for 20 people, and at least I got to see my Lola and my dogs and my neighbors. At least I got to catch up with my brothers last night and split an orange with my Lola this morning and at least I got to finally meet my cute little niece and nephews with their high ponytails and button noses, and at least I got to sit in the living room in the company of my mom’s entire family until midnight, eating ice-cream and playing board games and laughing and telling stories. At least I got to see Paisley and learn that I really like anemones, perhaps even more than I like peonies, and even though flowers are perishable at least I got to save the green and white striped ribbon for my notebook. At least, when I returned from the San Francisco airport to my childhood home in a jet-lagged haze, I got to run up the stairs, straight towards the cardboard box in the corner of my closet, and pull out all of the letters from Grandma that I could find, the ones written on yellow lined office paper with a return address to her Las Vegas address, one from an eighth grade graduation, one from a sixteenth birthday, one from a seventeenth birthday, and one from the Christmas of 2013 which contained the sentence “…although everybody knows it is impossible for me to forget you.”
To allow yourself to love someone is to allow yourself to grieve someone, and I feel so lucky to have loved my Great Grandma so much that I see her within boxes of shortbread cookies in English farm shops and bouquets of yellow roses at every market and grocery store I pass through, and the jackets and cardigans I grab when I am leaving the house in the summertime because I can still hear her telling me that I am going to catch a cold if I do not bring a jacket even though it is hot outside, and within sheets of lined yellow office paper and the stacks of $1 books at the library and containers of Vicks Vapor Rub and packs of tissues, and within red polka dot head scarves and pink cardigans with gold buttons and white frilly socks tucked into crocs, and boxes of Skyflake crackers and those individually wrapped madeleine cookies from Costco, and this Substack piece that I finally got myself to sit down and write and publish a month after I told myself I would.
*present-day Tatum here, I was allowed back in the U.K. It all worked out :-)
hello! thank you so much for taking the time to read this, i appreciate you <3 the last month has been nothing short of hectic but i’m glad i could finally take some time to reflect on it all. also, thank you so much for 1,000 subscribers?! absolute insanity. i am so happy you are here !!!
<3 tum
p.s. as i was writing this, one of those ‘featured photos’ notifications appeared on my phone and it was a photo of my grandma and her caretakers from 2024. how crazy is that ??? ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊
This is so beautiful and such a well worded description of grief. Thank you for sharing this with us x
i could read your words about living, grieving, and storytelling all day long. thank you for sharing this piece of you with us 💛