Where Did You Come From, Where Did You Go? (Part Three)

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2022 was relentless. The year began with a bout with depression. Turns out, bottling a trauma so you can just get through December retail is a very bad long term plan. I don’t recommend it. By February, I started pulling out of the funk, and managed to squeak out the only piece of writing I would complete all year. Then, came the gauntlet.

In mid-March, after years of waiting due to the societal effects of COVID-19, my partner was finally scheduled for a minor surgery she had been waiting for. We spent weeks preparing the store for her time needed for recovery. The surgery went without a hitch. She slowly started feeling better and better… and then the local comic book industry went sideways.

On Sunday March 27th, at roughly 2am, someone set fire to the largest store in the city: WonderHarbour. Shortly after, word spread through the community. Once the owner had made the official announcement, we reached out to him offering help in any way we possibly could. The offer ranged anywhere from helping with clean up, to offering a place to sell items on their behalf for items already on their way. We also discussed hiring their manager if the situation merited it. He was (and is) a good friend of ours, but with all of the chaos, we didn’t want to say anything until we were able to talk with the store owner about how he planned to move ahead – if he planned to move ahead. We weren’t exactly sure if we could even afford to hire the manager, but figured if WonderHarbour wasn’t moving forward, we could at least be a safe landing for someone.

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Where Did You Come From, Where Did You Go? (Part Two)

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The Beauchamp family, in their younger days

I didn’t drop completely until after Granny’s funeral in late October 2021. The family needed me. I was to deliver her eulogy, and help write her obituary. This was important, because Granny was clear on two things regarding her death: 1) we were to go out an buy an old plank of wood to cremate her on, as there was no sense in spending money on anything fancy. And 2) she wanted a good obituary.

Granny would frequently complain about the state of the obituary page in the newspaper.

“This didn’t tell me anything about them,” she would grumble, usually offering a few stories about the person who had passed along, as best as she could remember them.

It was important for her to get to connect with people. It was one of her favourite things to do. Later in life, she stopped introducing herself as “Isabel”, but as “Granny”. Not just a name, but a person in your life who would care for you. She wanted to know more about the people around her, and even in death, wanted to make sure others had the chance to know more about hers.

When I arrived home for the funeral, I started the work. My mom and aunts recalled stories. I bothered all of my cousins for memories. My Papa told us over and over, the story of how he had met Granny while holding green onions at a community baseball game.1 I put all of these stories together for the newspaper, and the funeral. I spoke in front of my family, voice shaking, trying my best to keep it together. I don’t like speaking publicly, but I had to do this. I did okay.

I forced my way through that weekend, and then I stopped.

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Where Did You Come From, Where Did You Go? (Part One)

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Myself, my granny and papa, at the kitchen table of my childhood home, 2010

A version of this article was originally posted at The Indirect Market in January 4th of 2023.

Things started to pull apart with the passing of my Granny in late October of 2021. She’d been lost in the maze of dementia for a few years. The family had said “good-bye” in pieces over time, the slices getting smaller as time marched on.

One of the last times I spoke with her, she proudly and somewhat defiantly told the nurse that I was her grandson, Brandon Schatz, taking great care to say my full name. The rest of our time together was spent navigating back and forth between that day, and several in the past.

At times, I was my father, from shortly after he left my mom. Granny was kind to him, but protective of her daughter. She wanted to know what his mother, my other grandma, thought about what was happening. She wanted to know how the kids were doing. I tried to go along with this. I felt like letting her stay in whatever time she was visiting would be more helpful than trying to wrench her away. It was hard. I learned a lot about things my parents tried to keep away from us kids. I’m still not fully sure I’ve processed all that information.

When my Granny’s brain let her return to the present, she would immediately start crying. She wanted to know why I looked so worried, wanted to know if I was okay. I tried my best to smile and tell her that I was, but she never bought it. She could read the worry on my face, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I was worried about her. I thought that would just make her cry even more.

These trips to the present never lasted long. We went off to so many other places. She was mad about the pillows in the house. And could I not bring the things in from the car like she had asked? And “don’t kiss funny women” – all interspersed with the last moments I could squeeze out, holding back tears while hanging on to her hands, trying my hardest not to look worried.

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