As a native of British Columbia, I know two things with absolute certainty: there’s always sixty percent chance of rain, and you should never turn your back on a bear.
I have two grandmothers.
More frequently than is healthy, I wake up beside a copy of Margaret Atwood’s poem “Europe on $5 a Day”.
I once outran a bear.
This is my story. Or, perhaps, this is the story I tell.
In the afterlife, my Grandmother Dorothy sighs; the cards are already on the table. Omnipresence is lovely until Dorothy realizes she’s everywhere, all the time; it’s terribly distracting. In death, unlike in life, Dorothy is always late.
“What’s she doing?” asks Dorothy.
“About to go for a run,” replies Ida, my maternal grandmother. Dorothy pulls up a chair and looks out, the Great Beyond’s only direction. It’s like staring into a cup of black coffee: beyond the steam and through the darkness, there’s the subtle silhouette of an image. Sometimes, a hand. Other times, an eye. Occasionally a tooth (very strange). Then, there are the days when a grandchild is fully visible. Today, I’m asleep, breathing heavily underneath a homemade quilt.
I roll over and grunt. Usually, I leave this part out. This story is a chocolate chip cookie; no one’s really in it for the dough. “More bear!” my listeners cry, and I oblige. A story isn’t like a finger – skin grafted to hunky flesh, bone like branch extending out from my body – a story isn’t so firmly attached to its owner. The trouble is that I’ve told the story so many times, encouraged so much pillaging, the most exciting parts are no longer mine. I’ve had to rummage, be a homeless woman in my own memory and hoard the remains. This isn’t all bad; it’s how I found Dorothy and Ida.
“She’s got your build, Ida,” says Dorothy, eyes fixed on my strong 22-year-old torso. I’m tall with green eyes and small hands in relation to my height. Its rare Dorothy can see so much of me; she wishes I looked more like her. Dorothy looks down at her own body; it is hollowed – no organs, no blood, no pesky mucus. Though Dorothy died in her eighties, she chooses to appear forty-two. It was the age when her body was sturdiest, no teen insecurities, none of the painful vulnerability of twenty-five year old beauty; death is function over fashion.
I’ve run this path a hundred times, my feet grudgingly guiding me over rocks and around holes caused by unruly mountain bikers. It’s a five kilometre loop, and as I reach the halfway point, nature mocks me; the trees tower but provide no shade; the creek to my right bubbles; sweat drips furiously out of each pore of my body. I pass a couple walking their unnaturally small dog and spend the remainder of the run swearing and debating: “Is the dog’s name Scruffy, Muffy, or Patches?” Its interest in my ankles suggests Muffy; Muffys are not to be trusted. Like the smell of cake just before its ready, I sense the parking lot, moderate excitement filling my body; this horrible jog is almost over.
“I miss baking,” says Ida, dealing a new round. “Isn’t that the strangest thing? Here we are, we can taste anything, delicacies I never dreamed of, and what I miss is the labour!”
“Not the labour, the process,” Dorothy corrects, elementary school teacher sensibilities shining through.
“We used to make the most wonderful apple cake. Family recipe three generations old.”
“Yes, it’s wonderful,” replies Dorothy warmly, “Joan used to make it for my visits.”
“Right,” replies Ida wincing slightly at the mention of her daughter. Ida died years before I was born, decades before Dorothy; as a result, Dorothy knew her daughter Joan almost as long as Ida did. The cruelty should be crippling, but Ida compartmentalizes it, taking the terrible gnawing sensation and stuffing it in a jar she has no plans on opening. Ida doesn’t believe in forgiving the universe, but she doesn’t believe in blaming it either. Dorothy envies her.
The two women are from working class backgrounds, small towns, a generation of women where a soft upper lip was the leading cause of suicide. They both have solid cores but their demeanours are significantly different. Ida’s sweet and patient with a love of baking and a secret distaste for the colour purple. Dorothy’s a tart proud woman who never once considered doing a handstand. In her retirement, Dorothy took up hobbies: crosswords, harmonica, walking. She also developed a fear of travel.
“Jebačina,” swears Louis loudly, taking a long gulp of whiskey. Dying isn’t altogether pleasant. There’s light and warmth, but there’s also a ripping, life peeled from body just as a pig’s skin is yanked from its carcass. Spending eternity with Louis, my maternal grandfather, is worse. An arrogant and insecure drunk with an arsenal of multi-lingual swear words, the charm that woos his family and friends is lost on Dorothy. In life, she would never have tolerated him, but death is sticky. The reminiscence of blood and bile make muck, fluids turning to emotion thick as rubber. Louis spends the majority of his time at my side.
Dorothy looks out; I’m standing on the path, a mere twenty feet from a large brown bear.
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