On Death and Baseball: In Memory of Eleanor J

I am not the only person who lived through the 2016 World Series thinking to herself, "my grandparent is single-handedly winning this game for the Cubs right now." I know this because I've seen the wall at Wrigley. Because I lived down the street from Fenway when the Red Sox broke their curse in 2004 and I watched first-hand as people thanked their deceased loved ones for the help. I know this is something people do. I knew it while watching all seven games last week. And yet. On November 2, at the top of the 10th inning as Zobrist stepped up to the plate, I closed my eyes and envisioned my grandmother standing on the pitching mound—hands up, guiding the baseball toward the bat like she'd just graduated from Hogwartz. And when he hit the ball that brought Almora Jr. home I was like, "DAMN, NANA, YOU REALLY KNOW HOW TO MAKE THIS SHIT EXCITING." I know it's wrong to give her all the credit. I know this team worked hard to get where they did on their own accord—they earned this win and it's theirs. But I can't help it. And it feels strange to be so painfully rational and... not... at the same time. My general feelings on sports are: they're a'ight. I mean, I will never understand why we treat athletes like superheroes, or role models, or why it's generally acceptable behavior for rival fans to literally want to kill each other. But. You know, in theory—sports are great. They teach kids teamwork and discipline and how to get into colleges for free! And when you have something riding on a win—be it money, hopes and dreams, or just a genuine love for a team or city—yes, I'll admit, they're intoxicating to watch. I honestly think I have trouble committing to sports because I have never met anyone as consistently disappointed as a diehard sports fan. Truly. Each week is a coin toss. Even when your team's pretty good, there's still a real chance for loss. Every week! Sometimes multiple times per week! I am ALL for taking risks, but I'm sorry, that's just too stressful. I've got other things to worry about—tangible things that I can control and that don't rely on strangers throwing balls around while wearing really tight pants. (Not that I mind the tight pants).

Few fans have been as consistently disappointed as Cubs fans.

My grandmother, Eleanor, Nana, Ele Jo... was a true Cubs fans—persistent, optimistic, and a bit of a masochist, I think. One of my very favorite things about her was how self-deprecating she could be. That sounds terrible. She wasn't self-deprecating in an obnoxious or even sad way. She wasn't vying for attention or validation as far as I could tell—it's just that she was shockingly witty and also just so happened to be the butt of her own jokes sometimes. Maybe she learned that was the safest way to express her humor. Either way, I appreciated it. If you read this blog consistently you might understand why. Nana joked that she'd refuse to die before seeing the Cubs take home a World Series win. She died just weeks before they did it. It was poetic, really, in that once again she lands on the other side of her own joke—but also because she finally had the rest of her family (all seven of her kids and her, like, billions of grandkids) as invested in the outcome of a Cubs' season as she'd been for so long. When she died, I was obviously sad. But I was sad in the way you get sad when you can't remember the last time your grandparent remembered who you were. I think it'd been seven years? It was before that one reunion in Texas... the one where I shared a room with her and felt terrible because I could tell she thought she was sharing a room with a complete stranger and it made her uncomfortable. She was so polite to me, but the way you're polite with... well, a complete stranger who's rooming with you for some reason and it's making you feel uncomfortable. That was a turning point for me. That's when I felt like maybe it was time to accept that it would never be the same. I'd watched my other grandmother slip into dementia and alzheimer's but hers was quick and steadfast in comparison. Not that there's a "worse" or "harder" when it comes to this—it's just that Nana's descent was slower. She seemed more self-aware of it in some way, and embarrassed. And it hurt to watch in a very different way than I'd experienced. And then there's that realization you get when your grandparent is slipping away from you, where you selfishly realize maybe you weren't as close to her as you should have been. And you want to correct that—because, again, selfish, really—but you can't because she doesn't even remember you exist. I was sad when she died because it reopened that feeling—where you start to wonder if you did right by her. You start to dig. I'm not sure I was ever as close to Nana as I could have been. We were close in the sense that we loved each other—I saw her often enough; we'd spend weeks at her home in the summers and she knew me well enough to know that I didn't like raisins in my cookies so she'd always bake me that 'special' batch without them. But I'm not sure I shared the kind of bond I saw in other grandparent/grandchild relationships. My older cousin, for example, was pen pals with Nana. I remember feeling so envious that they could share something like that. But when Nana suggested that we could be pen pals, too... I realized I didn't really want that kind of responsibility. Because, let's face it, I was kind of the worst, as many of the following memories will detail.

Here's what I remember about my grandmother:

I remember playing a lot of Hearts. And I remember getting grumpy when she'd win, which was always—until I realized I could just recruit her to my team. I remember getting my head stuck between the rails in the bannister at her house. I remember she laughed at me and it did NOT go over well. I remember nailing my head on the edge of a cabinet in her bathroom and when my mom dunked me in the bathtub to wash off the blood I remember how impressed I was that MY blood could turn all that tub water brown. I also remember being secretly mad at Nana for owning those cabinets in the first place—because that's rational. I remember playing with two porcelain mice that sat on the ledge of a window—they'd often get chipped on account of all her grandchildren, but she didn't seem to mind. I imagine she'd patiently glue them back together and set them back in their place. I have a vague memory of her laughing about those mice—something about how she couldn't understand why the kids loved them so much. But I could tell she kind of liked it. I remember when she sewed me my Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls and stitched her name on their little bodies. I remember how honored I felt that she made them for me. I'd run my fingers over her name constantly. She made them for most of her grandchildren, actually, and they were meticulously crafted. I remember going through all the dolls she had sewed for my aunts when they were kids—they were stashed in boxes in her basement and they were glorious. I remember Nana would keep two sets of Hot Wheels in her garage for whenever my brother and I would visit. I remember the smell of that garage. It was glorious, too. I remember I had my first spiritual moment when I was 5, playing alone in Nana's room. I looked at my hand, held it up to the ceiling light, and thought to myself, "What if this hand weren't real? What if it didn't exist? What if I didn't exist? What if the whole universe didn't exist? Would it be black? Would it be any color at all?" (nothing like the unprovoked thoughts of a child playing by herself in her grandmother's bedroom). And, of course, I remember when I got the chicken pox while staying at Nana's one summer. It prohibited me from going to a Cubs game with her and my brother. I remember the tantrum I threw about it. And I'll never forget how she looked at me as I was throwing it. The woman had seven kids and she was looking at me like she'd forgotten what a tantrum looked like. That, or I was really good at tantrums—entirely possible. Tantrums were my craft. But she was equally good at giving looks that made you feel like you may have taken it a step too far. So, good on you, Nana. Match and point. I think I always assumed I wasn't Nana's "top choice" for a granddaughter. I think she would have appreciated if I'd, you know, been a little more polite, in general... or at least let her in a little more. And maybe the timing was never right. As I grew up and out of my brash, over-confident behavior, I opted out of turning into a balanced, kind-hearted young person and instead let teenage insecurities totally overtake my person. I fell into a certain rebellious shyness—I craved attention, but also wanted to disappear. It wasn't the most natural time to fashion a relationship with a sweet older woman. Ironically, it WAS the perfect time to build a relationship with my grandfather, who'd laugh jovially at my hair color choices and the rings on my toes and then casually walk away. That was perfect: I got the attention I needed and the space I craved. With Nana, I regret not having those moments. I regret not working harder to fully 'connect' with her. And it was sad to have lived so many of my adult years feeling that regret—and not being able to do anything about it.

But something happened when the Cubs advanced to the NLCS against the Dodgers—I felt connected again. 

When Nana died, I felt relieved for her. She had lived in this sort of limbo for so long. I imagined her feeling free on the other side. Like she could stretch out all her limbs and feel weightless and float around and laugh a lot. But then the Cubs advanced to the NLCS and I realized they actually had a shot at at winning and I was like... STOP. EVERYTHING. SHE'S. STILL. HERE. It didn't help that I'm living in Los Angeles—the Cubs were coming to MY city. Surely, Nana would be here, too. When the Cubs won the first game, it was on. But Game 3 rocked me. I caught the tail end of it with Jaren. When the score closed 6-0, Dodgers AT Wrigley, he looked over at me and said, "sorry Kiki." (This was especially sweet because Jaren's a Dodgers fan and I knew that if it were any other situation he would have LOVED to rip into me). But he gave this one to me. And I needed this one. I didn't even KNOW I needed it until that moment. Correction: I didn't know I needed it until about 30 seconds after that moment, when I found myself silently sobbing while walking to the bathroom. Just to clarify: I don't cry about sports. I think that's crazy. But the vivid feeling I'd been able to grab hold of—that my grandmother was somewhere close by—after Game 3 of the NLCS, that feeling just VANISHED. And I wanted it back. I realized right then how badly I wanted the Cubs to win—not because it would fulfill my grandmother's life-long sports fantasy, but because it brought her back to life for me—it allowed me to remember her the way she deserved to be remembered. Not for who she'd become over the last seven years, not as the woman who'd forgotten my name or that I didn't like raisins in my cookies or that I was a willful child who needed to be muzzled but who she still loved enough to suggest we become pen pals. I was able to bring up the memories of her as the woman who loved taking her grandkids to the ballpark, who mastered all card games, who purchased wrapping paper from my school fundraisers and didn't mind that I chose which pattern she received (in a letter I found from my mother to Nana, thanking her for the order: "Christine ended up choosing the rolls of paper, and of course — it's wild. She's not one to choose conservatively." THANKS FOR THE VOTE OF CONFIDENCE, MOM. I BET THEY WERE REALLY PRETTY.) Anyway. I was able to remember the woman who talked to herself when she thought no one was around, who made jokes at her own expense, and who I did love, so very much, even though I was too self-involved to show it the way I should have. I was cautious going into the World Series. I didn't want to find myself randomly sobbing in a bathroom again. God forbid. So I prepared myself for the worst. And when Cleveland had us at 3-1, and I read the headlines about how only something like 2 teams had ever come back from that kind of a lead in the World Series, I figured, "Hey, they got this far. She'd at least be happy for that." But then Game 5 happened. And Game 6. And finally, Game 7. And Jaren came home with a Cubs hat for me. And then the rain delay. And that hit! That hit. And the strike-outs. And the celebration. And the excitement. And this OVERWHELMING feeling that I wasn't just celebrating for the win, I was celebrating for her. I'd been celebrating for WEEKS in her honor and in her name. I'd been inspired to pull out old letters my parents had written to her when they were overseas—they were given back to me when my she moved into a home—and I'd been living through those one-sided conversations. I even stumbled upon a drawing I'd made for Nana when I was 6, which was proof that, just maybe, I wasn't as terrible a granddaughter as I'd remembered. I'd been digging up old memories and holding onto them for longer than I would have, perhaps, if the Cubs hadn't advanced as far as they did. And when they won, there was this intense feeling like she could rest easier somehow, like we'd all been there with her for the moment she'd held out for for so very, very long. It became a celebration of her life, not merely a mourning for her loss. And isn't that what we all hope to inspire when we die? A celebration of our best selves? Eleanor got that celebration in large part thanks to her Cubbies and what they earned this year. So I'll be holding onto that Cubs hat of mine at her memorial this month. And I'll be remembering her the way she deserves to be remembered every year, win or lose, whenever the Cubs play. Because, I mean. Sports, right? Who knew.