Saturday Evening Outpost
NOT DEAD YET: PART I — We’re not sending her there to die.
— On October 26th, 1915 my grandmother was born. My family is simply amazed that she has made it this far. Not because of her age, or her health, but because she was able to endure difficulties she should have never faced at this stage of her life. This is her story.
Vivian slowly sat up in her bed rummaging through her memories looking for something she recognized. Twenty years of memories, at least in this house, that had never been difficult to access before. She touched her hairnet with both hands, slowly removing it and unconsciously fluffing her fine, white hair. Her small frame made her queen-sized bed look much bigger than it was. As her feet hit the cool, foot-weary wooden floor she remembered. Her old rocking chair, right next to her night table, had become a clothes horse. That’s where it was. She stared at the chair and leaned toward it to grab her bra. As she began to fall off the edge of the bed, her gnarled old hands grabbed the night table and she grunted, snatching the bra and pushing herself back. Her hands moved to the buttons on her pajama top. She had always slept in a pretty nightgown, but now she had made the transition to pajamas. The morning struggles to remove the nightgown had become too much and so in her insistence on dressing and undressing by herself, pajamas extended her autonomy.
It was later than usual for her to still be in bed so I had walked quietly to her bedroom door to listen for the sounds of her sleeping. It was open just a crack and I saw her slowly rise. It felt as if I was catching the last act of a sacred and soon never to be repeated ritual. As she began to unbutton her top I turned away. I could hear her struggling, muttering “oh damn it” under her breath several times. Without looking I whispered, “Grammy, you need some help in there?”
“Goodness sakes no!” she mumbled and then chuckled softly. “This damn bra.” I didn’t look in again, I just waited outside the door listening to her movements and the barely audible grunts and small bangs at she bumped things. I had just gotten home for a visit the night before. She was dressing for me because she came from a generation where special occasions were honored by getting “all made up” — painted nails, done-up hair, a pretty blouse and slacks, a waft of Eau de any-kind-of-rose perfume, and of course her favorite red slides. She was a lady. It was what she had always done. It filled me with such love — now a bittersweet love as my mind struggled to hold on to what was, knowing I must embrace what is.
As I waited, my head rested against the wall and I was lost in my thoughts of her. As I stared at the old, maple stained wood trim that framed her door it struck me how simple, yet important frames were. Real frames and unconsciously created, invisible frames we build from the moments, memories, stories and lessons we’ve been shaped by. Framed things give us focus and context. They give us a window to know what to look at and how to look at it. My framed vision of her was bucolic and peaceful and perfect.
Twenty minutes later she shuffled out of the room. She was dressed in a white, crepe blouse, pearls, several bracelets, navy slacks, makeup, and…the red slides. Gosh, she was still a classy lady. I was waiting with my hand out for her and she reached for it. Her hands were small, the blue veins and knuckles pushing up against skin wrinkled like a beautiful, worn piece of fine linen. I loved those hands with their knobby, bent joints leading to fire-engine red painted nails. There was delicate defiance in them as they struggled to hold on to…life. As her left hand disappeared into my right she cooed. “Oh, you’re so warm.”
I quickly responded with the adoration of a man who would always be her little boy. “And you look absolutely beautiful this morning, Grammy.”
“Oh you shush,” she chuckled, “don’t be fibbing your Grammy.”
“I’m not!” I laughed with her. “You never age!”
“Oh quit it now!” she bantered, though not rejecting my words. She knew how to take a compliment with finesse — a hint of demur then a gentle squeeze of thanks with her hand. At that moment an overwhelming feeling filled me as we walked hand-in-hand toward the little kitchen she and my mother shared. I never wanted to come to this little house and not find her here. And I never wanted her to die. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe, imagining a world without her in it.
She began to prepare the two slices of white toast with butter and then moved to make her coffee with milk. It was the exact same breakfast she’d been having since I was little enough to want to emulate her. “Do you want some help?” I asked knowing the answer. She shook her head, moving from coffee maker to toaster, grabbing the counters and dining chairs to guide her. “I can’t believe you are 100,” I said as I opened the kitchen curtains to let some light in. The toaster popped at the same time and with her hearing pretty shot and her refusal to wear hearing aids, I was sure she didn’t catch what I said.
Her hands shook as she buttered her toast. “What time is my hair appointment today?”
“Noon. And I can’t believe you are 100!” This time it was a little louder.
Her eyes stared blankly. “Where’s my mother?” I knew she meant my mom, at least that’s what I convinced myself.
“She’s at the grocery store.”
She laughed and gave me a look as if I wasn’t being honest and I just smiled and nodded. She picked up her flowered, round tray of coffee and toast and wobbled. She tried to steady herself. I gently took the tray from her and carried it to her chair where she’d spend the rest of her day. She never used to let me do that, she liked to carry it to her TV tray herself. It was part defiance, part determination, and part challenge.
“What time is my hair appointment?”
“Noon, Grammy.”
She sat in her chair eating her toast and sipping her coffee and I kneeled in front of her. She stared at me, a little twinkle still left in her eyes. A slight smile lifted the corners of her thin lips. She dipped her toast in her coffee and led it to her mouth without looking - an ancient muscle memory. She was the Grammy every little boy should have and I knew she saw me at that moment like she always had — that little boy running to jump into her arms the moment he saw her. She remembered me. I just knew it.
Her eyes were a piercing powder blue that had gobsmacked my grandfather the first time he’d laid eyes on her when she was just a teenager. “Red” was his nickname for the shock of red hair on his head and it occurred to me that maybe that’s why red had always been her favorite color. They had the kind of marriage that seemed like a fairy tale to us grandkids. He’d been gone almost 20 years and she kept her longing for him locked somewhere behind those eyes. Every time I looked into them it was if I was floating on a vast, reflecting sea of memories.
“I can believe it!” She interrupted my thoughts. I was confused until I realized she was circling back. The question about being 100 had registered and I was relieved in a small way. She wasn’t as bad as mom said she was. She was still my Grammy. I searched her face, admiring how few wrinkles she had and the good job she had done putting her makeup on. Then I saw a large bruise beneath the makeup on her forehead. I pointed to it and she reached up to touch it lightly.
“I fell again.” She laughed. “Boom! That was that. My mother found me.” And then she put down her toast, closed her eyes and fell asleep.
I moved her TV tray aside and gently wiped the crumbs from around her mouth, smiling as a smear of red lipstick got on the tissue I was using. Then I sat there quietly with her, not looking at a device or paging through the local eight-page newspaper that she had stopped reading when her vision started to go. I just sat listening to the sound of her sleeping. Mom would be home soon and I knew I had to quiet all my heart-bursting memories and be in the present for her. She had long left the past behind to live in the day-to-day struggle of attending to someone who needed almost her entire attention. She had given years of her life caring for her mother and it had eaten away at the wonderful and loving mother/daughter relationship that had been a cornerstone in how my siblings and I learned to build relationships. I knew deep down she yearned to find comfort in the memories she had of those times. She needed that relationship again. And time was running out.
When she returned from shopping and we began unpacking groceries I could tell it had been a much-needed break for her. “She was pretty great this morning,” I said softly.
“Good.” Beneath that single word lay a tremor of exhaustion and the unnerving fear of a lost savior. Or, one she feared never existed. She knew my bond with my Grammy was a strong one.
“I’m not saying that to change anything.” I reached over to her and pulled her in for a hug. “We all know she needs to be in a place where she can have the kind of care she needs.”
“I can’t leave her alone. She falls. She’s up wandering in the middle of the night. She’s getting confused all the time.” Her voice quivered, “you just don’t understand how tough it’s been.”
I held her tight for just a moment longer. “No, I don’t. I only get all the good stuff from her. But it’s time mom. And it’s ok.”
She started to cry and turned away from me. “I just can’t do it anymore. Mentally, physically.”
“Listen, you’ve been an extraordinary daughter. And you are not making this decision alone. We are all with you, really with you.”
She sat down at the little round kitchen table and I sat with her, staring down at the vibrant, flowered, plastic table cloth and rubbing my hands over it. She laid her hands flat on the table as if to steady her internal struggle and I placed mine on top of hers. Her eyes were glassy and then mine, too.
“You need your mom back,” I said softly. She nodded and pulled her hands away, plucking a colorfully printed napkin from the yellow, ceramic napkin holder and wiping her eyes. “And, you need your life back.” As desperately as she knew that to be true, it meant letting go.
“But, she’s my…mom,” her voiced cracked.
It was one thing to talk about sending her mom to a nursing home but deciding to actually do it was gut-wrenching. I couldn’t take her guilt away. As crushing as it was, it was also such a beautiful thing. A creature of love and devotion, of time-steeped struggles and triumphs in a well so deep and full of emotion that words to ease it, would pale.
“And we need OUR mom back…” It suddenly became so clear to me. The very love my mom took in caring for her mother is the kind of love my grandmother, had she been able to, would have demanded we show to our mom in her time of need. She would have given of herself without question. It was this beautiful damned circle and it felt as if God, or the universe or some powers-that-be had taken away a bit of the pain of letting go.
“I think it will be good for her, more stimulating.” I felt I needed to add. “We aren’t sending her there to die.”
We sat there at that little table staring at each other until her eyes drifted to the bird feeders just outside the back door. Bright, red cardinals flitted about, hummingbirds fluttered and squirrels quarreled. Blue Jays sat squawking in the big, knotty silver maple waiting to dive-bomb the feeders. Out there in the chaos of nature’s everyday life, she found some peace. It was time for the chaos that had become her life to end so she could find peace right inside her own home.
We didn’t know then how much better Grams life would get…and then how much more terrible it would get.
Author Note: Thanks for reading Not Dead Yet — Part I. Please click the link for Part II. https://saturdayeveningoutpost.medium.com/saturday-evening-outpost-e6c52d5b3c16
