What Lasts

Her handwriting was all over her house--hundreds of words handwritten on small pieces of paper taped over the garbage disposal, in the refrigerator, in the utility closet, in the drawers on top of piles of bank statements and decades of filed taxes and official documents. Charlotte’s grandmother, Yuma, who lived alone in the same house for nearly 50 years, wrote such practical reminders to herself: “garbage disposal NOT working--DO NOT use” over the sink, or “unplug refrigerator before changing light bulb” on the inside of the refrigerator door. In the cupboard above the stove, Yuma had organized rows of empty jars and bottles that said “sterilized” with different years written on each container, all of them 20 years old and at varying stages of collecting dust. These notes were meticulously cut from pages of Yuma’s black moleskine notebooks--12 in total, always the exact same color and size--that she kept in her bedroom. In these notebooks, Yuma also systematically chronicled how certain foods affected her blood sugar, which was stubbornly high but somehow managed to stay stable in the “pre-diabetic” zone for the last three decades of her life. She would write a food, and on the same line write “YES” or “NO.” “Chocolate donut…..NO.” “Sweet and sour chicken….NO.” “Carrot cake….NO.” These notebooks catalogued years of her dietary habits, most representing rejections that did not maintain the balance of her blood glucose, and yet she persisted in documenting each food, the occasional “YES” providing just enough reassurance to keep documenting. “Oatmeal...YES.”

Perhaps Yuma loved her written systems because of her career as a librarian. Perhaps her Japanese lineage made her destined to practice calligraphy, and the nature of unique self-expression through writing was innately a part of her from childhood. Whatever her reason, Yuma was a writer, even if not in the culturally mainstream definition or by professional standards. She wrote her memoirs--also in black moleskine notebooks--that Charlotte eventually typed for her on her laptop in the two years precipitating her death. Yuma respected technology and the place it inevitably has in an evolving society--even learning how to navigate a simple laptop to read her daily news--though all the same she kept her rotatory telephone, which outlives her to this day. Her penmanship--somewhere between cursive and script, slanted towards the right and leaning into the next letter and word--is as recognizable as her voice, her stature, her face.

And so it was no surprise that, after her death when Charlotte, her sister, and their mother were reviewing Yuma’s final wishes, that she had included a handwritten note in her trust disclosing the location and number of a safe deposit box. She described its contents: “my wedding kimono, additional moleskine notebooks of memoirs, and ten $20 U.S. liberty gold coins (Grandpa Joe’s and my first investment, estimated value as of 2015: $20,000 USD).”

Yuma never said “I love you,” but her love was ingrained in everything she did. As a librarian and lover of literature, she knew the power of words, but also recognized their limitations. Words were meaningless if disconnected from the feelings they were meant to inspire. On countless nights, Charlotte would sit with her at her kitchen table, drinking green tea, the rhythmic gentle ticking of the clock’s second hand keeping them company as the aroma of bittersweet tea leaves filled the house. They talked about life. Charlotte felt safe in her grandmother’s wisdom, connecting to her own inner wisdom more because of her. Yuma spoke of Charlotte’s grandfather, who had died when she was 49 and before Charlotte was born, of Charlotte’s mother and uncle, of Yuma’s career as a librarian, her worldly travels, of her political activism. Despite losing her husband at such a young age, she never remarried, and instead--just as in the meaning of her name--found a rhythm to life based in her own calm truths and the acceptance of her circumstances. “It is one thing to take care of the father of your children when we get old, but those older widower men looking for a new wife--they just want someone to take care of them.” Then Yuma would laugh and say through her laughter, “Not for me!”

In the days before Yuma’s death, Charlotte’s sister Phoebe (who had been living with Yuma for the last three years to save money while attending medical school), left Charlotte a message saying, “This is it. Grandma’s on the way out. Come as soon as you can.” Charlotte was living in Los Angeles at the time for her own residency, though still had one foot in her San Francisco life and the drive up and down the I-5 was as familiar to her as her grandmother’s handwriting. Charlotte threw a few days’ worth of clothing and toiletries into a backpack, and before hearing back from her supervising physician after a message alerting her of her departure for her dying grandmother, Charlotte tore onto the highway within 30-minutes of receiving Phoebe’s message, feeling something between adrenaline and uncontrollable sadness. After years of road trips to and from the Bay Area, the desolate 300-mile journey up and down I-5 now had familiar landmarks, markers of the passage of time--the oppressive floodlights in the distance in Avenal signaling the institutional presence of the state prison, the overpowering aroma of manure and dust at Coalinga at the cattle house, the sour and yet oddly enticing smell of Anderson’s pea soup passing through Santa Nella. Charlotte quietly cried the whole way. It was time to say goodbye.

On the drive, Charlotte remembered those long, table discussions with her grandmother, where her words gradually became a part of Charlotte. “It is important to make the most of what you have, to never take anything for granted. For me, I live on $60 a week, but I feel like I live like a king.” “The most important thing a person can learn is how to give and receive love...the people who do not know how, there will always be an emptiness in them that they will need to fill with distractions.” “Never accept any favors,” she once said when Charlotte accepted a free airplane ticket from her uncle (who then scolded her for not spending enough time entertaining their houseguest who, unbeknownst to Charlotte, she had been sent there to entertain), “because you never know what expectations are attached to them.” When Yuma saw Charlotte’s face fade in shame about her mistake and poor judgment, Yuma was quick to add, “About your uncle,” she said, “It will be OK. It is no one’s fault. It is just a misunderstanding.” Reassuring, gentle, balanced and neutral--that was her way. Despite the overwhelming losses she endured with the loss of her husband, a grandson, and her own son to an estrangement brought on by his marriage to a toxic, manipulating woman who forbade him from seeing her, Yuma never complained. “Aging is no picnic,” she would laugh and say about getting older. Yet she never expected anyone to take care of her, never asked for anything unless she truly needed it, never pressured anyone to spend time with her. It was through that freedom of self-assurance that Charlotte felt all the more compelled to be with her. Yuma was the only person who regularly wrote Charlotte handwritten letters, never once asking for a response.

When Charlotte arrived at the house, Yuma was resting peacefully in her bed, breathing heavily but eyes closed, serene. Phoebe told Charlotte she had had a stroke--her third in total--and had firmly requested Phoebe follow her “do not resuscitate” order in the event that this should occur again. As a training physician, Phoebe diligently--even though reluctantly and despondently--had complied.

Charlotte walked to Yuma’s bedside. The entire drive, she had not pictured what Yuma would look like when she saw her, though she felt calmed by what she saw when she did. If acceptance had a face, it would have looked like Yuma’s--eyebrows, eyes, lips, and cheeks relaxed, accompanied by a gentle readiness, the peace that comes from surrendering to the inevitable. Phoebe, also training to become a doctor--a psychiatrist instead of a physiatrist like Charlotte--had been by her bedside along with a hospice nurse.

Phoebe and Charlotte politely excused the hospice nurse, and settled in for what would be four nights ahead of keeping her company, their mother--Yuma’s daughter--to join the next day from Seattle. Even though not yet physicians, they were familiar with death through the death of their patients, but never so close, so intimate. Charlotte and Phoebe read their grandmother excerpts from her favorite books, and conversed with each other about current events in their lives so Yuma could hear about their residencies and what they had learned in medical school. When her breathing became heavy and labored, they spoke soft words of calm, reassuring her she was okay. They dipped toothettes in water and squeezed the liquid gently from the sponge onto her lips and in her mouth for comfort, and when she moaned in pain, they conservatively slid drops of liquid morphine under her tongue to ease her discomfort. They repositioned her body methodically every two to three hours to reassure Yuma with their touch and keep her comfortable.

On the morning of the fifth day, Charlotte, Phoebe, and their mother awoke and went to Yuma’s bedroom to check on her. It was a beautiful, sunny, crisp and clear Bay Area Fall Friday; the birds were chirping in the backyard and the children in the park next door were laughing and playing. Yuma had stopped breathing sometime over the night, quietly exiting just the way she had always hoped--in her home, in her bed, somewhere between waking and sleeping, with only the presence of the family she loved and the history of the life she had loved in the home that she had never left. She had passed. The life was out of her body, but yet her face was peaceful, relaxed--showing the completion of a life well lived, a soul and body willingly surrendered to the unknown. A life that needed nothing more, and had been ready to leave.

In the months that followed, Charlotte and Phoebe learned of their grandmother’s wishes. Amongst her expectedly quirky yet thoughtful wishes, she wanted Charlotte and Phoebe to share the moleskine notebooks containing her memoirs and the gold coins, valuing at $20,000 USD. To them, it would have diminished the coins’ value to cash them out. To this day, these items sit in a safe deposit box, a part of Yuma and her history, present and lasting--reminders that there are many things in life worth far more than money.

Charlotte eventually moved back to live with Phoebe in Yuma’s house with the unspoken agreement to leave their grandmother’s handwritten notes posted in their original locations, and to leave her other 12 moleskine notebooks in her bedroom where Yuma had left them. Whenever sad or lonely, Charlotte would go to Yuma’s bedroom, open one of her moleskine notebooks, and read instructions on plunging the toilet and water heater safety switches, about vanilla cupcakes and spaghetti, about the broken oven or ramen noodles, and she would steadily feel reassured with each word. What were once merely just pieces of paper were now indelibly marked by Yuma’s undeniably unique character. Like the transformation of wooden framing into a house that grew to become a home that symbolized her because of the way she lived, those pages and her handwriting became Yuma as much as they were expressions of her, and her wisdom and love were felt in every crack and corner of her home, now in every crack and corner of Charlotte. That, more than all the wealth in the world, more infinite than time and space, as exponential as the ripples of love passed from person to person, is truly what lasts.