Anyone will tell you to get someone's name tattooed on your body is the swiftest route to excommunication. Except when it's your grandma. Josephine was a woman I was in part raised by. A woman who I got a bitter streak from, whilst my nineteen year old neo-hippie mother encouraged me to "use my words." A woman who didn't like you until she liked you. One of those; beautifully, one of those kind of women. I was witness to consistent dichotomies in the two faces of the women with whom I spent my most formative years. Old world, first generation Armenian immigrant in my grandma, versus bright-eyed idealist sixties baby in my mom.
My mother and I lived with her until I was eight years old. It was the three of us under her roof with the occasional long term visit from one of my uncles. The bond that she and I shared was one I still palpably feel today. We were probably a sight to be seen, my blond haired, blue eyed-ness next to her olive skin and pronounced nose.
Her passing in our living room while I held her hand at the age of ten was a moment that excelled me into many emotions, ones which alter and dampen the sun of childhood. And I am aware now in my adulthood that she had a lot of dark times; none of which I ever sensed. I think I was a kind of magic for her back then as she is for me today in my dark times.
Josephine is someone I pray to. I see her in sunrises, but mostly sunsets. I think she indirectly taught me the way I wanted to be. I imagine what my grown woman self would have to say to her. Who we would talk shit about, what soap opera characters we'd root for. What she'd think of my choices, my husband, my life. And I imagine she wouldn't think too highly of my tattoos. Except for maybe the one that says Josephine.
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