An antenna shoots straight out of my head and extends into the clouds; I pick up on frequencies that build my future and can take me on journeys into the past. I tune into a vision and it becomes reality. By the age of three, ideas, plans, determination, and execution came to me with ease. I have the ability to dream up entire new realities. My Jackie taught me the art of building, editing, and rebuilding a life.

She called me Butterball.

My Jackie was a transfiguration master. She had disguises. She knew how to plan a costume for any play. Life was a theatrical adventure. She was always more than one kind of woman. She didn’t need outfits for her roles. The work was natural; she loved dressing the part.

Jackie would ease out of a simple cotton house frock, mildly forming her figure and in an instant, boom, she was transformed completely. One moment she would be gutting a fish I caught in the pond, in the next, she was wearing 1970’s go-go boots paired with a black leather jumpsuit.

Jackie owned scarves thrown in the audience by Elvis. He would shake, rattle, and toss. I remember seeing them framed in a shadow box. Luck didn’t yield my lady a token for anything in life. Jackie made reality a command performance.

My Jackie was all of 120 pounds with a special kind of deep beauty. No one in the universe transforms from a cooking apron into a Studio 55 disco queen outfit like my Jackie — she was the grand master of continuously reinventing herself.

I play this whisper of a sentence over and over in my head. Her spirit and energy guide my will.

In the winters, Jackie and my Pawpa would head out West. They owned land with a metal hunting lodge in Utah. Together, they built this simple shelter. The structure was basically an oversized tool shed. Jackie hunted with a Winchester .308 Mauser Rifle, a prized possession. She could tag a mule deer as quick as any, help Pawpa gut it, and prepare the meat.

Jackie was an adapter.

To love and adore my Pawpa, you had to be a very specific kind of woman. He was tough. My Jackie’s life called for self-confidence and decisiveness. If you were going to be with a man like Dick Kyle, you had to believe in yourself or trail from behind in the wake of his boldness — undefined. My lady was not one for following; she chose to stay with a challenging man. My Jackie joined in the celebration of his wild ways. She never pretended it was easy; she was never lost. She grew into the woman she wanted to be…right by his side.

She could blend, become, and understand. She watched people from behind her gentleness, kindness, and affirming approach, all while finding alternative routes in life. Watchers are knowers. Talkers are distractors. Jackie taught me about deep knowing.

Petite, Jackie was a natural, quiet observer; she was fearless. This composed little lady would camp in their sheet-metal shed with no plumbing, no insulation, and open land for an outhouse…all while sheltering by the warmth of a wood stove. She wasn’t one for complaining.

I can picture Jackie and my Pawpa in their gigantic 1967 three-quarter ton green Ford pickup with the metal rack welded to the top as they headed back to Oklahoma. I never made this journey with them.

I push my antenna into the clouds and ride along.

I like to envision Jackie on I-80 from Utah, straight through Wyoming, and onto I-25 heading south. She and Pawpa would hit Colorado, traverse into New Mexico, cruise into Texas, and cross the Red River into Oklahoma. A Ford pickup in the 60’s was solid. The shifter stuck three feet straight out of the floorboard, dipped at an angle toward the bench, and bent forward to the driver like a calling. There was a black shift knob with all the etched numbers worn away from Pawpa changing the gears over the years. I can hear the revving and steady acceleration… she was a grand beast of a machine.

I love seeing them. They are discussing the land and their next hunting trip. Duke, a massive black Great Dane, is riding in the back. Duke was my first love. Good-boy Duke’s head is pointed into the wind and gigantic blades of saliva are being thrown from his aristocratic jowls — tossed on the road like a javelin. Jackie is pouring coffee out of a stainless steel Stanley thermos; it’s two feet in height and 6 inches in diameter. Everything in their lives was built for purpose — utilitarian and reliable. I am tiny and safely encompassed in their world.

When they finish talking, my Jackie turns to stare out the window. Tall buttes and orange colors fill the Utah scenery. Jackie can see her reflection as they haul down the highway. Utah is full of wind-carved caves and majestic trails. Gnarled dry tree’s, a trace of time, reach out of the earth like an invitation, beckoning the imagination to go deeper. My Jackie’s reflection is fixed in place while the landscape rushes past.

I am traveling there with Jackie now. I see her shadow bouncing off the landscape. I want to touch her creamy rouge-tinted face, all made up for a road trip. Time…past, present and future—is churning outside the window of the Wooly Man Ford. This was my name for Pawpa’s truck. There is a bizarre little creature painted on the back, right passenger side. My father painted it there. I doodled him during long college lectures; I’ve slipped him into my kid’s lunch boxes, signed “Love, Mom”. I’ve sketched Wooly Man for over 50 years.

The outside world is just a mirage in my daydream of a trip. My Queen is with me; my antenna is up. I’m watching.

Jackie has slipped away, eyes open — she’s creating. I have witnessed her do this a million times through the kitchen window, standing, staring into space.

Jackie left my Pawpa a few times over the years. I know he deserved it. He went away and had a child with another woman. It’s their story.

I met his granddaughter on a genealogy website. A young, woman, my age, was searching for her grandmother’s lover…Her mother’s absent father.

My grandparents always stitched themselves back together— each part of some bizarre whole. They belonged, one to the other.

I launch myself into their past. I want to know what Jackie is planning before she got sick…before the cancer took her. I track her in time. I can smell her skin. Jackie is a cloud of Rose Milk and Ivory soap. I am on the road with them. I’m picturing myself in the cab of Wooly Man sitting between them. I have an ice cold Dr. Pepper in one hand and a baloney and cheese sandwich with mustard on my lap. I’ve smooshed chips between the Wonder Bread slices.

I am six years old.

My Pawpa shifts as we roll toward home.

As you read, I’m watching them from a warm fire in my Colorado home some 42 years after my Jackie’s death. I created every inch of this place. It grew in my heart before it became real. It’s filled with objects and people I dreamed into existence. I’m watching my family and remembering. I’m a time traveler.

After two weeks of shooting deer in the wild, Jackie arrives back in Kingston, Oklahoma, stores meat in the freezer and places her Mauser behind a hidden panel in their closet. She elegantly slips into a shirtwaist button down dress, black cat-eye sunglasses, and a purple sheer headscarf.

She hops in our Great Green Ride to run errands. Jackie made that 1969 Lincoln Continental Mark III look good.

Pawpa didn’t buy a fancy car to show her off around town; he would call that “putting on the dog.” He bought her a glorious, metal locomotive because it was a chariot meant for a gladiator. She was a warrior and he worshiped her. She was a woman of many talents. She didn’t talk about her skills, she lived them out-loud. She forgave her mistakes and moved on. She wasn’t responsible for his.

I watch her stroll through the market, all eyes upon her. Not a soul in town knows this woman just put away a Winchester rifle, let alone assume she would know how to use it. I loved watching people watch her. She drove the nicest car in town and carried herself like royalty.

Jackie never, for a second, thought she was better than anyone — she was kind to every soul who crossed her path. She owned her life, her powerful enigmatic essence, and the ever-temporary-present-moment she inhabited. Jackie was a wave of ease. She was a whisper of hope. People felt her love wash over them. She represented self-worth and helped others want to wrap themselves in their own. Inspiration is a weak expression for the gifts she bestowed.

Everyone was always trying to figure out my Jackie’s story. Confidence draws people in; mystery keeps them longing. Her ability to genuinely care for others allowed for a depth of dignity. She opened a portal for people to believe in themselves.

Pawpa sold the Utah land during Jackie’s battle with cancer. He tried with every ounce of determination to keep her alive. He didn’t need the money. Utah belonged to them. Jackie was the wind that graced the surface. She was the force behind the adventure.

Pawpa bought a van, built a make-shift bed in the back, and drove her into Mexico for alternative treatments unavailable in the United States. He drove for days. Pawpa made a soul quest to keep her here. This journey is not meant for me: far too sacred to travel in my mind.

The cancer had spread so deep. My Jackie was in pain. I didn’t fully understand; she was leaving. I knew she was sick. She was always going to be my Jackie and I never imagined her not being at the center of my world. Signs began to show. My Queen was ending her time on earth. She knew it. I didn’t.

Jackie was making plans.

A local lady from the baptist church came to assist my sweet Jackie with her bathing a few times a week. I was there during one of Mrs. Roger’s visits; she asked me to come in and help. In the moments that followed, I began to understand just how sick my transformative lady was.

I hear Jackie’s tender voice call my name,

Jackie was private. I was surprised by the invitation. My Jackie was the first woman I ever saw naked. She sat bare and still in a half-filled tub.

Mrs. Rogers handed me a bar of Ivory Soap and a white washcloth.

Jackie softly directed me.

The cancer had eaten away her beautiful body. Her head was neatly wrapped in a silk scarf. You could see her skeleton frame. Her skin was blueish gray and her cheeks were pale yellow, sunken like earth that could not hold. I didn’t look away. I breathed her in.

Kneeling, I dipped the washcloth in the tub, soaped it up, and did as I was told. I was careful. Jackie’s translucent skin looked like it might spread apart and leave me looking inside of her. I washed in the hope of keeping her together.

I wanted to stay by her side for an eternity; I let the water run down her ridged spine. I washed to keep her whole; I washed to smell her alive.

I didn’t cry.

I caressed my Jackie’s back gently as she held her knees, wrapping her body into herself. I knew we were saying goodbye.

Jackie was the mother I never had. My own mother had been sick my entire life.

There were no dramatic gestures. We didn’t proclaim our love. No words were exchanged. We both held the moment in silence.

I looked up at Jackie’s caregiver. A single tear rolled slowly and softly down Mrs. Roger’s perfect, youthful face. She looked at me peacefully, placed her hand on my back, and nodded for me to continue. I can still feel her kindness.

You can talk up a blue streak about rituals and burying the dead. There are so many things family members attempt to do perfectly, acts that are staged, and proclamations that are exaggerated. We say goodbye to either hold a loved one intact or to erase the truth of their existence. Sometimes the final egress needs to be more grand than the life lived. My Jackie’s life was no betrayal.

I experienced something sacred in that small bathroom with Ms. Rogers.

Jackie was the only woman I’ve ever understood. She never once judged or criticized me. She lived to encourage me. She showed me how to hold my head high; we practiced. She led by example as I learned to take on many roles and travel alternative paths.

Jackie left me with this sincere, bold exit.

Jackie was modest. She was always polished and presentable, a radiant woman mostly simple and sometimes looking like a rockstar. She always wore a perfectly powered face and lipstick. Her hair was neatly quaffed from the time she woke up till she prepared for bed. She was always aware and alert.

On this day, she was gentle and wrapped loosely in her own arms. Stripped bare of all earthly disguises, my Jackie made her naked body as a final offering to me, her granddaughter.

I was a child, washing the back of a woman I loved.