WEDNESDAY: Comfort

BY MARISA GRAY ATHA

Copyright is held by the author.

AT THE end of the saddest day of my life, I drove my grandmother, while my husband carried on home with our girls. Soon to be 95, Baba couldn’t fathom that her son-in-law (my dad) had passed — surely, he had another solid 20 years ahead. She had lost another loved one and, yet, here she remained.

When I walked her up the driveway and opened the door to her house, she turned towards me and crumbled into a sob. “Everything will be so hard now. Everything will be so hard,” she moaned.

I numbly opened my arms to enfold her, comforting her while thinking, “Shouldn’t this be the other way around?”

Where was the strong, elder woman in the family? My grandmother had survived near starvation, displacement, and emigration during World War II; she had regenerated in a foreign country and built a home, a church, a community, and a family. She had endured while so many others of her friends and family fell and perished. This woman should stand in front of her granddaughter, and offer reassurance along the lines of, “I’ve been through this. You will be OK. We will be OK.”

But no, it was the reverse — it was a shocked, numb, worn, traumatized granddaughter comforting a messy, inconsolable, openly grieving grandmother. The message I received was that everything would not be OK. In fact, “everything will be so hard now.”

I released her once she’d slowed her sobs and wiped her tears. She nodded that she was ready for me to go, knowing I had to get home to the children. She retreated into her dark home, where she had lived alone for the past 27 years since her husband, my grandfather, had passed.

***

After performing the automated rituals of bath, brushing teeth, and reading, it was time for goodnight songs and tuckings in. And now, it was my daughters’ turn to seek comfort from me.

“What now?” they asked that first night, crying. “Who will take us to ski, and to McDonald’s for pancakes and orange juice before? And for grilled cheese in the lodge and to build a snowman? And feed us secret-pocket M&Ms when we ski good? Who will take us to golf and let us drive the cart?”

They were asking who would replace the irreplaceable fun that Pa had provided during their entire lives, every single week, with lots of extras, treats, sillies, and smiles delivered in between.

I answered them, numbly, resolutely, “I will.”

“I will take you skiing and golfing, and we will keep doing all those fun things. We will keep Pa’s spirit alive.” I had whispered similar promises to Dad while he lay dying in the hospice bed in my parents’ family room.

The girls sang lullabies with me, and I tried not to let my voice quaver. And then the girls sent prayerful wishes up to Pa, hoping that heaven was filled with green golf courses and snowy, white mountains.

***

The second night, they said simply, and tearfully, “I miss Pa.”

“I do too,” I said, as nothing could be truer.

As I was so far from knowing how to comfort myself, as my mother was far gone into her own grief, and as my grandmother had no solace to give, I called upon a thought my sister-in-law had offered. She’d said to me during Dad’s funeral: “You’ll look forward to the dreams. He’ll visit you and when you wake up, you’ll want to dive right back in.”

So, I told my daughters, “Pa will visit you. He’ll take you golfing and skiing, and give you hugs and laugh with you. Tell me when he comes.”

With that, they excitedly fell asleep.

And when Pa didn’t visit them overnight, they woke up disappointed, as if Santa Claus had skipped over their Christmas-Eve rooftop.

I improvised, “Well, it won’t happen every night. In fact, you might not even remember. After all, you don’t remember all of your dreams, right? It will be very, very special when he visits and you remember it. When you do, tell all of us so we can enjoy it too, OK?”

A little more hesitantly, they nodded, OK.

***

Time passed and it was my eldest daughter’s birthday. Only three weeks had lapsed since Dad died, and I was called upon to give my daughter the joy, laughter, and celebration she deserved as she turned nine years old. I donned the heavy mask of extra enthusiasm, trying to compensate for the voided silhouette in the shape of her grandfather.

Soon after, it was my mother’s birthday, then my grandmother’s. Our family celebrated their lives, and the love we held for these women, even while we held each in their profound sadness. I pulled my daughters aside to promise them that, although their grandmother and great-grandmother weren’t smiling or seemingly happy to continue living, there actually was so much to live and hope for.

I needed them to know this, to believe me, to focus their attention on the aliveness of my words, not the deadness of their other mothers’ empty stares. I held my voice steady and said, “Pa enjoyed his life more than anyone I know; the world was his playground. And now it’s yours.”

Yes, OK, my girls nodded their sweet, child heads, another dose of hope sufficiently delivered — still so young, unconscious of the life force that compelled their sunflower-radiant faces to follow the light, untamed squeals and giggles sound tracking their course, as they delighted in memories of their grandfather pulling a cheery handful of buttons from his pocket to complete the snowman he’d built with them. Pa played and laughed, loving and living fully — though missing the man, my daughters were comforted by the bread-crumbed trail he’d left them . . . good-job-M&Ms and surprise-snowman-buttons sprinkled on the snow, a quirky smattering, a rainbow of possibilities.

Just follow Pa’s footsteps, dear ones. He’ll lead the way.

***

Marisa Gray Atha is a writer and teacher. With degrees in English, Music, and Psychology, Marisa continues to express her lifelong curiosity about inspiration, art, narrative, and the thread that connects people to one another. An avid blogger and guest contributor, her work can be found in the Journal of Singing, NATS Inter Nos, OM Yoga & Lifestyle Magazine, Months to Years Literary Journal, and Sad Girl Diaries Literary Magazine. Her novel Written on the Wall was published in 2025. Marisa lives with her family in Northern California.