The classroom clock struck 2:45 pm. I looked over to my left and through the bungalow window spotted her pulling her lighter out of her breast's humble abode and lighting up her infamous Marlboro. She was wearing her black slacks, gold flats, and her hair was highlighted and done up in the style that Farrah Fawcett made famous in the 1970's.
The year was 1993; I was a fourth grader and was desperate to make new friends who would never leave "chia pet" jokes up to their imagination. My grandmother made her way upon school grounds instead of waiting in her car in the unloading children zone, and sat upon a wooden bench besides the handball courts, casually smoking her cigarette. All I thought was, "holy crap, my grandmother must be breaking the LAUSD's number one law...smoking in an institution that houses children 11 years and younger for 7 hours a day."
I was mortified and began praying silently to god in hopes that no one would see her foreign body, a slightly well speaker of english, and perhaps get me into trouble. Bless her heart and the many apprehensive minutes of my youth that have undoubtedly been attributed to her delicate, amorous, godly-like existence.
I have spent many nights during the past year, including the night she died, laying awake around half past two in the morning listening to Simon and Garfunkel's "Bookends". "Long ago it must be, I have a photograph. Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you." I have a photograph of her and my parents on my nightstand. My mother, a starlet of the early 80's stands to her mother's left, and my father stands on my grandmother's right, kissing her rose-stained cheekbone as delight frames her face, and curlers keep her tendrils pinned up, allowing me to admire her beauty some decades later.
I mentioned it at her funeral, and I'll mention it again despite people begging to differ, my eyes never lost sight upon how much she cared for my father. I will appreciate her for that, amongst everything else, till the day I die and am reunited with her.
I remember one night when I was 18 that our family had gathered at her house. She had asked me if I wanted to spend the night, after all I grew up nestling my head upon her chest and sleeping beside her every weekend up until I was about 15, and I remember having said that I'd rather go home. That conversation and the look of faint gloom on her face hits me on random days, at random hours, and the tears stream uncontrollably down my face.
Grandma, I never meant to grow up. I never meant to decline your offer. I never meant to grow out of our bond. I never meant to say no. If I were offered the chance to wake up to the smell of tea, milk and cigarettes wafting through the room, and the sound of her and grandpa conversing over the CNN news reporter, I would without a doubt accept. A breakfast consisting of pouched eggs with tomatoes and raw, white onions on the side has never again hit the spot the way it did each time I woke to her beautiful face and to her distinct smell of Alberto V05 shampoo, rose water and Marlboros.
This past week I began my master's program in English and as I sat in my first class, I smiled at the thought of her. When I was 15, I had told her that I wanted to be a choreographer, and to a 74-year-old foreigner, a "dancer" and a choreographer do not differ much. She said I should pursue it, and a minute later corrected herself. She had thought I meant stripper and said, "Me khai raghas beshee? Khob beshoe, vallee nah vaseh kar. Khoob neest zan een karaho bokoneh." My grandfather changed the subject and pointed to Christiane Amanpour on CNN and said that I soon would be like her, and then grandma smiled. I probably won't make it on TV but I'll make it somewhere, surely not on a pole yet somewhere that would've made her proud.
I don't know what else to say. Her passing was something I could have never prepared for, and I poured my heart's discontent out then. Losing someone you love is like a current you fight from drowning against. Simply put, there is only half of my life's hope that lives beating beside me now. She is gone, and for now thankfully my father still remains. I am at a loss for words. I still cannot imagine what has become of her and there is concrete evidence that lies against this fear, supporting it persistently from this day forth. My father could fall away from my sight tomorrow, and the other half of my hope will die along with him. I find it a delicate impression; my life's happiness began in the arms of the woman who gave birth to my mother, a woman whose happiness began in the arms of the man who will always be responsible for the end of mine, dead or alive.
Margrit Chaman Khankhanian: May 20, 1925 - September 10, 2009
You were my best friend and though I must live now with half of my being intact, I wish you sweet dreams of an epic magnitude, tonight and every night, knowing that you will always be something otherworldly, divine and simply impeccable. I love you always, now and forever.
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