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 like 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