Earlier today I was tidying up my inbox when I re-discovered an old email:
Livier McGee was my grandmother, Lili. She sent me this email the day after I published a blog post about a difficult appointment I had with my dermatologist. For those of you who are close with me and my family, you may know that Lili died this past December. She was a marvelous woman. My family and I spent most of the holidays celebrating her life and holding space to mourn her death. I’ve gone back and forth about sharing some of Lili’s stories on this blog, so when I saw the email today, it felt like a gentle nudge for me to speak up.
Some of this post is about trans stuff; most of it is not. I just think Lili was a great human and I’d love to remember her here. To those reading: thank you for helping me celebrate her life.
“Thanks in advance for sharing, Eisa. You’ve talked about Lili before and she always sounded like a superstar.”
Indeed, Helga. My grandmother Lili was a badass…
See that girl on the left in the leather jacket? That was Lili. The leather jacket belonged to her older brother, and it was her favorite thing to wear.
I like looking at this photo because it reminds me of Lili’s sensibilities. She was a no-nonsense kinda person. Nothing extra; just keep it simple. No fancy coat; just this bomb leather jacket she took from her older brother.
Lili enjoyed simple pleasures. She liked good food and art, and delighted in collecting found objects. In her and Papa’s old house, the wall in the foyer was covered with small trinkets she’d found on walks and brought home. When you entered through the front door you would see a massive tapestry of shells, plastic figurines, driftwood, and crafts. I’m remembering a small sculpture of Richard Nixon facing the doorway, into whose mouth she had glued a forked tongue.
Lili was also a fantastic storyteller. When I spent time with her I’d beg her to tell me “true stories.” She would talk about friends she had back in Chicago, or about how she met and married Papa, or about her boarding school in Jalisco. I used to record our story-telling sessions on tape and then play them back before falling asleep at night. I’ve thought a lot recently about my own joy for storytelling, and I have no doubt that Lili’s stories raised me to appreciate the art form.
When my sisters and I would stay the weekend at our grandparent’s house, Lili would show us her favorite movies and play cards and games with us. I recall one game in which she would pretend to be a nurse and draw our blood as though we were donating at a blood bank. In the simulation, she gave our arms a gentle pinch, then wrapped the wounds with a bandage and fed us imaginary donuts and orange juice to replenish our blood sugar. She donated blood throughout her adult life and always encouraged us to do the same.
Lili used to quiz me at the breakfast table. She took a handful of pills every morning, and whenever we were together I would match each pill to its respective ailment. The red one for high blood pressure, the yellow one for cholesterol, the brown one a multivitamin. This was one of my favorite games to play with her. When she was in hospice, I visited her one morning at breakfast time. She was quite frail and moved very slowly. Every motion drained her energy. While I sat at the table she slowly reached over to take her morning pills. I suddenly remembered our game, but assumed she would have forgotten in her haze. She dumped the pills in front of her and then looked up at me and quipped, “You’ll never guess what these are for.”
Such was Lili’s sense of humor. Her pragmatism and loving wit shined through every interaction and made her a true delight to be around. She made me laugh even after her death, when I saw the letter she had written entailing instructions for her memorial ceremony. The envelope was labeled, “When I croak,” and the letter requested that any money set aside for funeral services instead be donated to her favorite charities: Planned Parenthood, the Encinitas Community Resource Center, and the North County LGBTQ Resource Center. Only Lili could enter the final stages of her life with such good humor and grace.
In the last few days before she died, I was lucky enough to sit with Lili and brush her hair. She was in a great deal of pain, but I felt so blessed to be able to do this one thing that gave her pleasure. She reaffirmed her love for all of us and told us stories until she passed, early in the morning on December 15th.
The next day my mom went back to Lili and Papa’s house to organize some of Lili’s things. She came home and told me that she had cleared out Lili’s personal file cabinet. Then she handed me a file with the name “Laila” crossed out and “Eisa” written next to it. Lili had kept a file on me. Inside was a printed copy of each of my blog posts, many of them with small notes made in the margins. She had also printed out a few articles that explained genderqueer, non-binary, and trans identities.
Although I was distant from her in the past few years, off in my own world with school, Lili was watching carefully, and trying tirelessly to keep up so that she could be there to love and support me whenever I came back home.
This was the last email she sent, back in August, immediately after I had announced my name change. I feel her love whenever I read this note.
As I relive my memories and reflect on our relationship, I’m overcome with gratitude for Lili’s presence in my life. I am connected to her when I play cards, when I cook with her recipes, even when I take pills, when I make sarcastic political jibes she would’ve appreciated, and especially when I tell stories. She loved our family and she loved me, and she never stopped searching to deepen her understanding and her connections to us.
May she rest in peace and may her memory and her love live on in us all.
Eisa
breast2chest 