Until now I never noticed how tranquil the valley is. Los Osos sits at the western end, and to get there you take a long, meandering road that goes between green pastures and low hills. You pass cows lounging, content to watch the occasional car pass by, faces turned towards the ocean, catching a breath of cool salty air. The low clouds sometimes wreath the hilltops, and there are birds circling overhead. It is a place that exudes peace, a rarity anywhere, especially in California. It occurs to me that the next time I make this drive, it will be to attend a funeral. I roll down the window and reach out, letting the sun warm my arm. The breeze causes gooseflesh.
The machine that pumps the oxygen through the tube that goes into my grandmother's nostrils sounds like a train, and brings a memory to the forefront: I am 6, or 7, and I am having a Gramma Day. She takes each grandkid out for his or her own special day and this is mine. We are at Balboa Park, there to ride the miniature train that weaves through the trees. There are plywood cutouts of animals: a giraffe, a lion, a zebra. There is a tunnel - it goes for maybe 10 yards, but it takes me and Gramma to the center of the earth, and if I look at the walls hard enough I see dinosaurs and Morlocks and all sorts of amazing things. Do you see them, Gramma?, I ask her. Of course I do, she says.
They replaced her bed with one from a hospital; it can be raised and lowered and has bars on each side to prevent her from rolling out. It allows her to view her backyard, which is a garden. The ground is carpeted by vines bearing bright orange flowers. There are small palms and ferns and everything is green. The daylight shines through trees that my dad calls pin oaks; their trunks twist upward, the branches reaching towards the sky, spreading out like hands that have fought long and hard and earned the right to feel the sun. I sit next to her, and I fix my burning eyes on those trees, and I think that if I look long and hard enough, I will be able to somehow see them grow. Watch them live.
(ETA: Doris Avant passed away in her sleep, on May 16, 2009. She lived a life as big as her heart, and she will be deeply missed.)
