Holding on, never letting go.

"Gotta hold on easy as I let you go/Wanna tell you how much I love you, though you say you already know."- Tim McGraw, My Little Girl

I was 12 and I heard my parents talking down the hall. I stumbled out of bed because it was Christmas Eve morning. My mom got my sister as well and told up that out Baba had died. I cried. I cried because I never really knew the lady. She had a massive stroke when I was young and the personality that everyone remembered her having was gone. My mom went over to help my grandpa. When she got there, his friends had come over to drink coffee with him. We went over with our dad later and the air hurt. There were no words to share; instead we sat in the heavy silence and tried to eat the meal we all knew so well.

I was probably no older than 5 and at my grandparents. I was wearing an orange sundress. My baba was cooking something and I was sitting on the counter top. I don't know what we were doing, but I remember it was during the day. Maybe we were making supper. Maybe we were making lunch. The memory is blurred, yet clear. It is the only memory that I have of my baba before her stroke.

My memories of my grandparents surround my grandpa caring for my baba. Making sure she had food and was comfortable. He helped her. I remember my mom going over to help him make the first Christmas dinner he ever had to make. He had changed a lot that year. From New Year's Eve in 1997 or 1998, my grandpa became the main cook and caretaker for everything in the house. He became in charge of everything from food to paying bill. He did well.

Ever since that time, I have fought to hold onto basic traditions that seem minimal. My grandpa still buys pyjamas for his grown up grandchildren on Christmas Eve. At first I think it was so the traditions would stay the same, now I think it is a coping mechanism for my grandpa as Christmas is a really hard time of year for him. New Year's Eve was when my baba had a stroke and Christmas Eve was when she died. Christmas is never easy. Christmas is hard. Christmas is harder for my grandpa than anyone else. The pain remains to various degrees for everyone in the family. It is harder for my grandpa now that he has moved into an apartment and my cousin and her family live in his old house. We still go there on Christmas Eve for food and laughs. My grandpa sits quietly because it still hurts. It is the house where he raised his kids; the house he lost his wife in. It's hard.
In my room I have to delicate grip balls. They were for my baba's therapy after her strokes. I don't know how much she used them, but they were hers and I did not know her that well. My mom saved them for me when my grandpa went to move. They are something though. Something tangible that I need. It is something that I can hold onto because it is a reminder of what I remember; a lady who could not remember who I was, but loved me dearly.

This story shifts to my dad's side. My grandma would somehow get us all over before Christmas to make cookies. We still do that and this us coming up on the fifth Christmas we have been without her. We haven't met a year. We all look forward to making them together. I know that I may one day have to fill a cooler full of cookie dough and drive into Winnipeg because I no longer live in Winnipeg. We hold onto the tradition. We hold onto what we have and we never let go.