A little blank in the eyes...

I've always been told that I have a very expressive face, my first reactions to anything (the truest reactions if you ask me) can usually be read in my face and I've also been told you can tell my mood in my eyes.

For a long time I was extra careful to cover up the upsets and sadness and disappointments going on in my life and put on that perpetual smile so many of you know so well that maybe none of you have seen a real one in so long that you can't tell the difference. For a long time I'd be very careful with my "cover" that it never dawned on me that those who were curious could really read me if they wanted to through my eyes.

I've also been told on many occasions that I have sad eyes. I believe pictures taken of me when I don't smile look sad , the sides of my lips are slightly turned down so I thought that contributed to my somber look. I gave no consideration to the sadness that seems or seemed to spill through my stare.

I suppose that may have been where I expressed the sadness, behind my eyes. I used to blame the circumstances that caused my sadness... the death of people I love, the end of some relationships, broken friendships, missed opportunities, but I didn't take the responsibility for the presence of them in my spirit. I never admitted to myself that I was the one that held them in my heart for them to be present in my glare and dwell there so long that it almost became a facial feature.

Its always been a habit of mine, and I am sure its a regular practice of many people, to compare my present situation to ones I've had before. I found myself in a discussion with my boyfriend, (yes I have one of those but that is for another blog, he's a good guy and he's really sweet to me, I hope that puts you at ease until I give you the details) and he said to me that my stare has started to look a little blank and that he's finding it increasingly hard to read my eyes. When he said it at first I was a little confused by it, I didn't understand how it was possible for me to be blank in the eyes.

Then I gave it some thought, maybe I'm blank in my eyes because I've started to let go of the things that made me sad and disappointed, maybe what he saw in my eyes that he was so familiar with was the sadness I carried for so long. I've let go of a lot of things so maybe the absence of "readable content" is just the space made for something better. Maybe my emotionless stare isn't a bad thing, a sign of newly found hope in things yet to come.

Flipped upside down and back around

I was doing so well with the promises I made you guys. At least on entry a month I said last year and then nothing from me in seven months... What a horrible friend. Excuses? Of course I have those and if you're interested I'd prefer to offer them as explanations as opposed to excuses. I don't regret the reasons that prevented me from writing I just wish I made the time to write through them.

Everyday for the past seven months have been centered, at some time or another, around my grandmother. Joyce Winsome McKenzie was born June 14, 1935, she attended Primary and High School in St James, went to teacher's college, entered and won Miss St. James, gave birth and raised 6 children, taught at her alma mater, worked for the government, jumped in Jamaica carnival on numerous occasions, opened and ran her own culinary school, wrote Common Entrance and GSAT math books, traveled to China, Korea, Alaska, among other places, helped to raise her grand and to an even grater part great- grandchildren... I could continue this list forever and through out all her accomplishments and achievements and recognition she was on of the most down to earth, humbled person I know.

In mid July my mother asked me if I would mind going to stay with my grandmother because my cousins that were staying with her for the past almost 3 years were going back to the states and grandma would need some help around the house because of a pinched nerve. No problem I thought I love my grandmother's company. I moved in the very same day my cousins left and my grandmother became my everything.

In the mornings we'd wake up (she would usually wake me up) go downstairs, and make breakfast. She'd go off to work and I'd go off to work and we'd both not say anything much to each other until the evening when she'd bring me home a slice of cake or a sugar flower she made while at her school, until one day it became hard for her to breathe. Now I cant even remember the day of the week really I just remember calling my aunt and telling her to come quickly, they admitted her. There was fluid on her right lung, so they removed it and tested it. She had just completed treatment for breast cancer earlier in the year so they were testing to see if the cancer had spread. we got her home and she was doing fine until the shortness in breath had come back, back to the hospital pumped more fluid off the lung and this time powdered the lung so that no more fluid can gather in that part of her chest cavity. Safe for now, I thought, but I thought too soon. Results from the lab showed that the cancer was back and now in the lining of the lung and lung and was extremely aggressive. I stopped working the minute she was home and spent every waking moment doing whatever it was that she needed me to do, I even started sleeping lighter so that if she called in the night I would be conscious enough to respond. The rest of the summer was much like that and towards the end I got help with her. Its hard taking care of someone you love, its harder when its your full time responsibility and increasingly more difficult when you have to do it alone.

By the time school started I was already tired and began hating the sound of my name. No rest for the wicked. A few nights for the week I took the night shift with grandma which eventually became sleeping in the sofa next to hers and getting up at the strangest hours to make her tea, helping her to the bathroom, helping her sit up, sometimes feeding her and dispensing pills which seems to multiply every time she went to the doctor, and even through all of this I still could not imagine what was to follow.

On the 29th November we took grandma to the hospital. She had stopped eating and it was becoming more difficult moving her. They admitted her to the hospital, put her right back in the same room she had been in the first time we took her there and for one week I could not do anything constructive unless i was at her bedside, I didn't even bother to go to school and if I did make it into my uniform I quickly walked down to the hospital. On Sunday night I kissed her cold hands on my way out to go home. As I put my head to the pillow my mother called, grandma had passed. It was then that I realized just how quiet the house was. I pulled my clothes on and went with my aunt to the hospital and stayed until the undertakers came for the body. Its been one month 2 weeks and three days since she's passed and I have not slept one night in her house alone, but I will tonight. All my company leaves me today, not sure how I'll fall asleep.

Last year this time I was gearing up for my second semester at school, by the way I kicked ass last year... 4.02 GPA. The scholarship eluded me last semester but there are a few more to come. Last year this time my world was almost perfect, still some pot holes in the road but I was learning to hold my own. Now today, today I still think of my grandmother, I sit in her house and wonder if I will ever be as magnificent and graceful and poised as she was. I miss her.

In Loving Memory of Joyce W. McKenzie.