A Woman Who Was Entirely Good
A glimpse of the great adventure beyond
The last time I spoke to my dear grandmother, Gunhild, was on the phone. I was on a hilltop in Bel Air and my grandmother in a hospital bed in Finland.
She was dying and probably on morphine or something similar. I said something that made her laugh. The laughter that came out was not that of a 90-year old woman.
It was that of a, well, 19-year old. It was harsh, a bit bitter, a bit sweet, a bit of everything — it was echoes of the life my grandmother had lived and expressed by her younger self. Like that moment in the Matrix when Neo gets the info downloaded.
My grandmother’s laugh frightened me a bit. It had fierceness and power in it. Beyond anything I had ever heard from her, the gentlest and kindest woman I have ever known on this Earth.
I think that she saw that brink, that beyond, and she knew how little we know — we who remain here in this reality. I like to think that she saw a glimpse of the great adventure beyond and how immense and probably scary and wonderful it is.
And that it cannot be articulated other than through a laugh that is untranslatable. But I heard it from a woman who was entirely good.
Inspired by this stunning story by Walter Kirn.