This is Azadeh being ALMOST as tall as Grandma.
Az got glasses. She hardly ever remembers to wear them, but...
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Monday, April 16, 2018
A complicated woman
We are reading selected parts of The Odyssey in my freshmen year class. A new translation is out that I haven't read yet, but it's making waves (no pun intended, Poseidon!) for being the first translation by a woman, and instead of the previous, fancy versions, it's not only more straightforward, but contains a different perspective.
The new translation's first line has been banging around in my head: "Tell me about a complicated man."
The last post that I wrote here was important to me, but it was also ABOUT me. I shared it on Facebook as well, and my friends there were kind and supportive, and some of them said my grandma sounded like a wonderful person.
And she was. Asterisk.
But I also didn't actually describe her, and I've set myself that task today, because I don't want leave the impression that she was a be-aproned Nanna resting pies on the windowsill and crocheting afghans for the backs of countless couches. In many ways, that was my other grandma, and that's a story for another day.
My grandma Vida was a complicated woman.
I can sum up her early life thusly: I asked her once if she'd ever read "The Grapes of Wrath," and she answered, "no, but from what I have been told, that is our story." She was an Okie who came to California in the dust bowl. They were briefly migrant fruit-pickers, but they were bootstrap-grabbing strivers, too, and my great-grandpa helped lay all the roads around Chico, and my great-grandma was a doctor's assistant, and they ended up with a nice house and a nice life. Vida was an only child, and it sounds like she was probably a bit spoiled.
She became a cadet nurse during WWII, and it was then, though not in that capacity, that she met my grandfather. She was raised a Baptist, and Grandpa was a Catholic, so she had to promise to raise the kids Catholic as well.
In some ways, I don't know much about the years before the 70s. Dad can recall having a creditor at the front door and another on the phone. Most of the kids went to public school, but one of my uncles went to a private religious school. The photos of them from that time show a sharply dressed, handsome family. The boys were all attractive and athletic, and the girl is beautiful. My grandfather is dashing. My grandmother is stylish. I see myself in her. I see my cousins in my grandfather.
I only know bits and pieces. One brother stabs another with a fork over the last serving of a dish. Grandpa makes two of the boys fight. I don't know why. Dad gets in a horrific bike accident trying to jump a ramp on a bike loaded with newspapers. He still has dark shadows of gravel in his temple. Dad says my grandma was awful, but he's not a storyteller or a historian like my mom is. He prefers to let sleeping dogs lie.
My mom knew my dad from high school, but didn't get to know him, really, until she was living on her own and he was back from the Navy. Most of what I know comes from her. I love to listen to her stories and histories. As I got older, they got less sanitized, and I learned about the ways Grandma egged my grandfather to anger, or the ways she was selfish. I learned that pretty much every child, when they were ready (or not quite ready) to move out on their own had a raging fight with grandma, complete with yelling and slamming of doors. Then they were temporarily disowned.
This does not bother me. First of all, because by the time I came along, I never witnessed any of this. Second, because I love my grandmother, and I can excuse anything. In my mind, the story goes that she was so close to them, so dependent on them, that she couldn't let them leave in a healthy way and had to kick up a fuss to make it easier on herself. I have no idea if this is true. Maybe she was just a harridan. It doesn't matter to me, because she was never unkind to me.
~~~~~~~~
Interlude:
When we talk about intersectionality, one of the things we're talking about is how some groups are left out of the conversation. Here's an example: some feminists like to argue that women first worked outside the home and entered the workforce in the 70s. But the Black women who were enslaved, then who worked as domestic help hear that statement and wonder where their history is in that statement. They wonder if feminism is for them.
But others are left out, too. The Chinese women who ran laundries. Poor white women.
I don't know that "poor" is a good descriptor for my family on either side (as they owned their own homes, had cars, etc.), but both of my grandmothers worked, and my great-grandmother did, too.
~~~~~~~~~
Grandma was bossy, she was temperamental, and when she fixated on an idea, it had to be done. In the 70s, she ordered curtains for her home with alternating blue and green panels, then blue and green sofas and carpet as well. Her bedroom had a purple paisley carpet, and when she moved to another home a few years ago, she insisted that her kids bring that crazy Jefferson Airplane-looking carpet to her new home. They did.
Shit, two weeks before she died, she insisted that she get a haircut like my dad's (i.e. super-short) and she wouldn't stop nagging people until someone agreed to do it. Even then, she didn't wait, and cut it badly herself.
I can remember her getting mad at someone (one of her kids) and demanding that they all return the keys to her house. More than once.
If she didn't like something, she stuck her tongue out or waved her hand dismissively, or said "phooey."
She would tell you exactly what she thought about your choices, about someone else's choices, about the decades-old choice that she never understood. She would tell you about the grudge she held. She had strong opinions on food, music, media, celebrities... Much of what you liked could be responded to with a "Hmf" or a "Bah."
She kept junk food in the house at all times. In one cabinet in the kitchen were usually 4-6 packages of cookies -- Flaky Flix and Nilla Wafers and Ginger Snaps. In a blue jar by the door were Starburst. An outdoor fridge held several kinds of soda and juice.
I'm sure health-conscious parents like my mom were somewhat horrified, but there was never less junk food.
Grandma and Grandpa were the primary caregivers for five of my cousins. I stayed with my other grandma, and my older cousins were with their mom. By the time the youngest two came along, my grandparents were too tired and had to decline.
They were still little when my grandfather died and broke my heart. This isn't a grandpa story, but I mean this and nothing less -- the death of my grandfather changed the trajectory of my life.
Grandma was sad, like anyone would be. And she was lonely, too. She was a woman who had lived with her partner for 53 years and who had brought up two generations of noisy children. In my lifetime, especially in my early childhood, we spent Christmas eve there, but also many many weekend nights. The adults played pinochle and my cousins and I mostly turned over a table and pretended it was a boat. We visited. It was common for people to be there -- an auntie picking up the kids, an uncle stopping in after the work day. For a while, one aunt and uncle lived next door and another directly across the street. My dad lived and lives a few blocks further. When I was grown, sometimes I would drop by, too, and most of the time someone else was already there.
So without Grandpa, and with the adult kids moving away and the grandkids bigger.... Grandma complained a little, and then she went out and did her own shit. She volunteered with an organization that went to local schools and put sealants on the kids' teeth. She joined the Widowed Person's Association and went to their events. She served breakfasts at the Elks Lodge. She was totally trolling for dudes, too -- there is no need to gloss that over. She wanted a partner again. She missed having one. I think that is okay. I think her adult kids had an adjustment phase with that idea.
She had been interested in genealogy, even traveling with Grandpa to find more information to Pella, Iowa. She always had computers and was a very early adopter of new technology, even if she very rarely knew how to use it. I'm sure I was about twelve when I went over and she had the younger kids playing Reader Rabbit. She used it for her genealogy, too, and made many contacts that way.
She stayed busy and engaged with the world. One of her daily habits was reading the newspaper cover to cover and clipping things she found to be of interest. I remember once sitting at the table while she and my grandpa fixed a meal. I don't remember her cooking much, honestly. Usually she and Grandpa would work together, one washing lettuce, another slicing cucumber... Or Grandpa would scramble eggs while Grandma got hot cocoa on. Anyway, I was at the table and I remember Grandma saying, "when I die, you can bury me ass-up and stamp Democrat on one cheek and Union on the other." It surprised me a little, then, that she ended up living for a decade or so with a very conservative blowhard, but I shouldn't have been too surprised -- as I said, she wanted companionship. As for the blowhard himself, I am glad he's dead, and that's all there is to say at this juncture (it is NOT because of his politics).
She had difficult feelings on race, which is probably normal for white 90 year olds from Oklahoma. I don't think I ever heard her use the N-word, but she would sometimes ask if I had a lot of Black students (she whispered "Black," as if she thought she was saying something a little bit scandalous), and whether it was hard to teach under those conditions. But when I talked about the realities of the kids I worked with, I know she listened, too. And when the family diversified, if you will -- I and two cousins married people who were half-Thai, half-Persian, and all-Persian -- she was delighted with them and us and the grand babies. It was never an issue.
She was often difficult and contradictory. If you told her something she didn't like, she wouldn't politely decline. She'd say "No" in a serious tone, while glaring at you over her trifocals. She hated zucchini, and would say "bleh!" if you mentioned it. She said she didn't care for chocolate, but she loved cocoa and See's candy. She thought my mother made the best German chocolate cake, and even though I took her slices that I'd made, she would never agree that I made it as well as my mom. (I thought about tricking her and telling her the slice was Mom's but I didn't. Can't lie to Grandma.)
She was demanding. She wanted things done her way, on her timeline, even if it was kind of a terrible idea. I have seen my dad whip his hat off to mop his brow, pace back and forth in a short line, and mutter, "she wants the goddamn thing in the -- fine. Fuck it. Fine." She would not be reasoned with. If you would not do the thing for her, someone else would. In fact, she might well ask two or three people to complete the same task, and if you did it second and then found out you had wasted your time, too bad!
She had little use for tact. In a restaurant, a waitress might breezily ask, "Are you liking the pasta?" and Grandma would look her in the eye and say, "I'm not." Then go on to explain why. I don't know why, but it never embarrassed me. I might drop a little extra tip afterwards and apologize, but I thought she was funny. She was a truth-teller and a critic and someone who got her way, not someone who coddled your feelings. There is a lot to admire in that.
When I showed up on her doorstep, more often than not she would say, "HA! You little shit!" She would laugh a high, tinkling belly laugh. She would hug and kiss me. She would let me and my cousins, then all the great-grandchildren, measure ourselves against her diminutive height and say, "not yet! Almost!" Azadeh was still "not yet."
And to my eternal wonderment, even at 90 years old, she still got on the floor to play with the kids. She would say, "oof" and "oh fanny" when doing so, but she always did, picking through toys, books, and color crayons to entertain the little ones, asking, "what have we got here?"
Once near my birthday I came over and she motioned me to her room. She had picked out a sweatsuit for me with appliqué flowers up and down the leg and top. She looked at the sweatsuit, looked at me (having been raised myself to value others' feelings over strict truth-telling, I was hunting desperately for a way to say I liked it, or how comfortable it looked), pointed at it accusingly, and said, "No, right? That's what I thought. I'm sending it back."
She was so strong. A real force of nature. Everyone in the family gravitated around her, and she liked it that way. Her memories in me are so strong that it's almost unbelievable that she's gone. I can still hear her voice -- partly, perhaps, because I have been imitating it for years. Kara Ellen! she would call me.
And she could be mean. I don't know what conversations ever took place between her and my step-mom, but there was a rift there that was irreparable, and I am sure that Grandma had a lot to do with it. One of my cousins had a girl lie to him (maybe!) about a pregnancy when she was a teenager and my grandma STILL thinks she's a bitch (they are married now).
Other times, she could be wildly inclusive. My cousin (or cousin's wife, really) cried on the phone with me the other night about the way that Grandma had brought her into the family, telling my cousin not to screw things up with her. My best friend (Monkeygirl) says that Grandma became her grandma some twenty years ago.
But what I mostly love about Grandma, to be brutally honest and openly selfish, was that she loved the snot out of me. She made me feel good about myself because she just liked me for me, laughed at my jokes, was happy to see me, and would feed me cookies. She loved me as a kid, she loved me as a young adult finding myself, and she loved me in her last days. She loved my kids, she loved my husband. She loved the writing I showed her (and had some notes for me). I never felt judged, or if I was judged, I never felt unloved because of it. I never thought I'd disappointed her. When I told her I was getting divorced after my first marriage, I knew I'd made her sad for me, and that was hard. But she didn't think I was wrong. She thought I was great.
At the very end, her memory was fading. It slipped pretty steadily over the last year. She would tell the same story with the same inflection three or four times in a sitting. I got the family, most of us, together for a family portrait last summer, and when I brought her the pictures, she tapped several people and struggled for their names, which I'd never known her to do. She wanted me to buy a plant for my mom, and she couldn't remember the name. She started flipping through her daybook looking for it, but forgot what she was looking for and ended up reading me several interesting snippets instead. (On my next visit I surprised her: "What was the name of that rose you wanted me to get?" "Sheila's Perfume.")
We were talking quietly while I painted her nails, and she sat back to rest. "What happened between Azadeh and Lochlan?" I had told her this, but I told her again; "I lost one, Grandma." "Well," she said. It was a "well" with a period after it, encompassing how our lives go sometimes. Losses. Returns. The things that are hard, but you move past them. The good things that happen that balance them out.
My Grandma is gone. My Grandma loved me. Well.
The new translation's first line has been banging around in my head: "Tell me about a complicated man."
The last post that I wrote here was important to me, but it was also ABOUT me. I shared it on Facebook as well, and my friends there were kind and supportive, and some of them said my grandma sounded like a wonderful person.
And she was. Asterisk.
But I also didn't actually describe her, and I've set myself that task today, because I don't want leave the impression that she was a be-aproned Nanna resting pies on the windowsill and crocheting afghans for the backs of countless couches. In many ways, that was my other grandma, and that's a story for another day.
My grandma Vida was a complicated woman.
I can sum up her early life thusly: I asked her once if she'd ever read "The Grapes of Wrath," and she answered, "no, but from what I have been told, that is our story." She was an Okie who came to California in the dust bowl. They were briefly migrant fruit-pickers, but they were bootstrap-grabbing strivers, too, and my great-grandpa helped lay all the roads around Chico, and my great-grandma was a doctor's assistant, and they ended up with a nice house and a nice life. Vida was an only child, and it sounds like she was probably a bit spoiled.
She became a cadet nurse during WWII, and it was then, though not in that capacity, that she met my grandfather. She was raised a Baptist, and Grandpa was a Catholic, so she had to promise to raise the kids Catholic as well.
In some ways, I don't know much about the years before the 70s. Dad can recall having a creditor at the front door and another on the phone. Most of the kids went to public school, but one of my uncles went to a private religious school. The photos of them from that time show a sharply dressed, handsome family. The boys were all attractive and athletic, and the girl is beautiful. My grandfather is dashing. My grandmother is stylish. I see myself in her. I see my cousins in my grandfather.
I only know bits and pieces. One brother stabs another with a fork over the last serving of a dish. Grandpa makes two of the boys fight. I don't know why. Dad gets in a horrific bike accident trying to jump a ramp on a bike loaded with newspapers. He still has dark shadows of gravel in his temple. Dad says my grandma was awful, but he's not a storyteller or a historian like my mom is. He prefers to let sleeping dogs lie.
My mom knew my dad from high school, but didn't get to know him, really, until she was living on her own and he was back from the Navy. Most of what I know comes from her. I love to listen to her stories and histories. As I got older, they got less sanitized, and I learned about the ways Grandma egged my grandfather to anger, or the ways she was selfish. I learned that pretty much every child, when they were ready (or not quite ready) to move out on their own had a raging fight with grandma, complete with yelling and slamming of doors. Then they were temporarily disowned.
This does not bother me. First of all, because by the time I came along, I never witnessed any of this. Second, because I love my grandmother, and I can excuse anything. In my mind, the story goes that she was so close to them, so dependent on them, that she couldn't let them leave in a healthy way and had to kick up a fuss to make it easier on herself. I have no idea if this is true. Maybe she was just a harridan. It doesn't matter to me, because she was never unkind to me.
~~~~~~~~
Interlude:
When we talk about intersectionality, one of the things we're talking about is how some groups are left out of the conversation. Here's an example: some feminists like to argue that women first worked outside the home and entered the workforce in the 70s. But the Black women who were enslaved, then who worked as domestic help hear that statement and wonder where their history is in that statement. They wonder if feminism is for them.
But others are left out, too. The Chinese women who ran laundries. Poor white women.
I don't know that "poor" is a good descriptor for my family on either side (as they owned their own homes, had cars, etc.), but both of my grandmothers worked, and my great-grandmother did, too.
~~~~~~~~~
Grandma was bossy, she was temperamental, and when she fixated on an idea, it had to be done. In the 70s, she ordered curtains for her home with alternating blue and green panels, then blue and green sofas and carpet as well. Her bedroom had a purple paisley carpet, and when she moved to another home a few years ago, she insisted that her kids bring that crazy Jefferson Airplane-looking carpet to her new home. They did.
Shit, two weeks before she died, she insisted that she get a haircut like my dad's (i.e. super-short) and she wouldn't stop nagging people until someone agreed to do it. Even then, she didn't wait, and cut it badly herself.
I can remember her getting mad at someone (one of her kids) and demanding that they all return the keys to her house. More than once.
If she didn't like something, she stuck her tongue out or waved her hand dismissively, or said "phooey."
She would tell you exactly what she thought about your choices, about someone else's choices, about the decades-old choice that she never understood. She would tell you about the grudge she held. She had strong opinions on food, music, media, celebrities... Much of what you liked could be responded to with a "Hmf" or a "Bah."
She kept junk food in the house at all times. In one cabinet in the kitchen were usually 4-6 packages of cookies -- Flaky Flix and Nilla Wafers and Ginger Snaps. In a blue jar by the door were Starburst. An outdoor fridge held several kinds of soda and juice.
I'm sure health-conscious parents like my mom were somewhat horrified, but there was never less junk food.
Grandma and Grandpa were the primary caregivers for five of my cousins. I stayed with my other grandma, and my older cousins were with their mom. By the time the youngest two came along, my grandparents were too tired and had to decline.
They were still little when my grandfather died and broke my heart. This isn't a grandpa story, but I mean this and nothing less -- the death of my grandfather changed the trajectory of my life.
Grandma was sad, like anyone would be. And she was lonely, too. She was a woman who had lived with her partner for 53 years and who had brought up two generations of noisy children. In my lifetime, especially in my early childhood, we spent Christmas eve there, but also many many weekend nights. The adults played pinochle and my cousins and I mostly turned over a table and pretended it was a boat. We visited. It was common for people to be there -- an auntie picking up the kids, an uncle stopping in after the work day. For a while, one aunt and uncle lived next door and another directly across the street. My dad lived and lives a few blocks further. When I was grown, sometimes I would drop by, too, and most of the time someone else was already there.
So without Grandpa, and with the adult kids moving away and the grandkids bigger.... Grandma complained a little, and then she went out and did her own shit. She volunteered with an organization that went to local schools and put sealants on the kids' teeth. She joined the Widowed Person's Association and went to their events. She served breakfasts at the Elks Lodge. She was totally trolling for dudes, too -- there is no need to gloss that over. She wanted a partner again. She missed having one. I think that is okay. I think her adult kids had an adjustment phase with that idea.
She had been interested in genealogy, even traveling with Grandpa to find more information to Pella, Iowa. She always had computers and was a very early adopter of new technology, even if she very rarely knew how to use it. I'm sure I was about twelve when I went over and she had the younger kids playing Reader Rabbit. She used it for her genealogy, too, and made many contacts that way.
She stayed busy and engaged with the world. One of her daily habits was reading the newspaper cover to cover and clipping things she found to be of interest. I remember once sitting at the table while she and my grandpa fixed a meal. I don't remember her cooking much, honestly. Usually she and Grandpa would work together, one washing lettuce, another slicing cucumber... Or Grandpa would scramble eggs while Grandma got hot cocoa on. Anyway, I was at the table and I remember Grandma saying, "when I die, you can bury me ass-up and stamp Democrat on one cheek and Union on the other." It surprised me a little, then, that she ended up living for a decade or so with a very conservative blowhard, but I shouldn't have been too surprised -- as I said, she wanted companionship. As for the blowhard himself, I am glad he's dead, and that's all there is to say at this juncture (it is NOT because of his politics).
She had difficult feelings on race, which is probably normal for white 90 year olds from Oklahoma. I don't think I ever heard her use the N-word, but she would sometimes ask if I had a lot of Black students (she whispered "Black," as if she thought she was saying something a little bit scandalous), and whether it was hard to teach under those conditions. But when I talked about the realities of the kids I worked with, I know she listened, too. And when the family diversified, if you will -- I and two cousins married people who were half-Thai, half-Persian, and all-Persian -- she was delighted with them and us and the grand babies. It was never an issue.
She was often difficult and contradictory. If you told her something she didn't like, she wouldn't politely decline. She'd say "No" in a serious tone, while glaring at you over her trifocals. She hated zucchini, and would say "bleh!" if you mentioned it. She said she didn't care for chocolate, but she loved cocoa and See's candy. She thought my mother made the best German chocolate cake, and even though I took her slices that I'd made, she would never agree that I made it as well as my mom. (I thought about tricking her and telling her the slice was Mom's but I didn't. Can't lie to Grandma.)
She was demanding. She wanted things done her way, on her timeline, even if it was kind of a terrible idea. I have seen my dad whip his hat off to mop his brow, pace back and forth in a short line, and mutter, "she wants the goddamn thing in the -- fine. Fuck it. Fine." She would not be reasoned with. If you would not do the thing for her, someone else would. In fact, she might well ask two or three people to complete the same task, and if you did it second and then found out you had wasted your time, too bad!
She had little use for tact. In a restaurant, a waitress might breezily ask, "Are you liking the pasta?" and Grandma would look her in the eye and say, "I'm not." Then go on to explain why. I don't know why, but it never embarrassed me. I might drop a little extra tip afterwards and apologize, but I thought she was funny. She was a truth-teller and a critic and someone who got her way, not someone who coddled your feelings. There is a lot to admire in that.
When I showed up on her doorstep, more often than not she would say, "HA! You little shit!" She would laugh a high, tinkling belly laugh. She would hug and kiss me. She would let me and my cousins, then all the great-grandchildren, measure ourselves against her diminutive height and say, "not yet! Almost!" Azadeh was still "not yet."
And to my eternal wonderment, even at 90 years old, she still got on the floor to play with the kids. She would say, "oof" and "oh fanny" when doing so, but she always did, picking through toys, books, and color crayons to entertain the little ones, asking, "what have we got here?"
Once near my birthday I came over and she motioned me to her room. She had picked out a sweatsuit for me with appliqué flowers up and down the leg and top. She looked at the sweatsuit, looked at me (having been raised myself to value others' feelings over strict truth-telling, I was hunting desperately for a way to say I liked it, or how comfortable it looked), pointed at it accusingly, and said, "No, right? That's what I thought. I'm sending it back."
She was so strong. A real force of nature. Everyone in the family gravitated around her, and she liked it that way. Her memories in me are so strong that it's almost unbelievable that she's gone. I can still hear her voice -- partly, perhaps, because I have been imitating it for years. Kara Ellen! she would call me.
And she could be mean. I don't know what conversations ever took place between her and my step-mom, but there was a rift there that was irreparable, and I am sure that Grandma had a lot to do with it. One of my cousins had a girl lie to him (maybe!) about a pregnancy when she was a teenager and my grandma STILL thinks she's a bitch (they are married now).
Other times, she could be wildly inclusive. My cousin (or cousin's wife, really) cried on the phone with me the other night about the way that Grandma had brought her into the family, telling my cousin not to screw things up with her. My best friend (Monkeygirl) says that Grandma became her grandma some twenty years ago.
But what I mostly love about Grandma, to be brutally honest and openly selfish, was that she loved the snot out of me. She made me feel good about myself because she just liked me for me, laughed at my jokes, was happy to see me, and would feed me cookies. She loved me as a kid, she loved me as a young adult finding myself, and she loved me in her last days. She loved my kids, she loved my husband. She loved the writing I showed her (and had some notes for me). I never felt judged, or if I was judged, I never felt unloved because of it. I never thought I'd disappointed her. When I told her I was getting divorced after my first marriage, I knew I'd made her sad for me, and that was hard. But she didn't think I was wrong. She thought I was great.
At the very end, her memory was fading. It slipped pretty steadily over the last year. She would tell the same story with the same inflection three or four times in a sitting. I got the family, most of us, together for a family portrait last summer, and when I brought her the pictures, she tapped several people and struggled for their names, which I'd never known her to do. She wanted me to buy a plant for my mom, and she couldn't remember the name. She started flipping through her daybook looking for it, but forgot what she was looking for and ended up reading me several interesting snippets instead. (On my next visit I surprised her: "What was the name of that rose you wanted me to get?" "Sheila's Perfume.")
We were talking quietly while I painted her nails, and she sat back to rest. "What happened between Azadeh and Lochlan?" I had told her this, but I told her again; "I lost one, Grandma." "Well," she said. It was a "well" with a period after it, encompassing how our lives go sometimes. Losses. Returns. The things that are hard, but you move past them. The good things that happen that balance them out.
My Grandma is gone. My Grandma loved me. Well.
Wednesday, April 04, 2018
Granny.
I went and visited Granny with the kids a few days before Azadeh's birthday. She was happy to see them, offered Azadeh a globe, showed me the things that were meant to go to certain people. We talked about what she wanted for a funeral service and I took notes. I did a sink full of dishes again.
Sometimes I worry that I don't show love very well. I don't know that washing some dishes does it, or painting her nails. I would rather pull an opposite-Indiana-Jones and stuff my heart right into her through her ribcage to know she really felt it.
Calm down, it's a metaphor.
When we were gone to Oregon for Spring Break, she was transferred into a hospice facility. I worried she would die when I was gone. I told myself it didn't matter. I ached. She didn't die while we were gone. I felt guilty that the force of my will kept her alive when she was probably ready to go. I do not believe in mystical shit like the force of my will. Also I completely do. Also I was relieved.
I did not talk about my grandmother while we were in Oregon, even though my family there is so wonderful and sweet and caring and would have wrapped me in love. I did not want to cry there. I desperately wanted to tell them, to cry, to be wrapped in love.
I am not complaining, but my life with an autistic kid keeps me pretty scheduled-up. We have, at the moment, two days of in-home therapy and one at a clinic across town. I could not go see her Monday or Tuesday.
My dad came over Tuesday to take Azadeh to dance class, and I talked with him about going to see her. He thought it was pointless. To do what *I* needed to do, but if it was for her... well, he didn't think I would really be able to offer her any comfort.
I wanted to give her comfort. I wanted to have the comfort myself of seeing her one last time. I desperately did not want to see her near death. It felt important not to abandon her on her deathbed.
I went today. I got there at 3:30 with Lochlan, sat him in the chair at the foot of the bed that did not have a good view of her, as she looked something less than human. She was so yellow as to be almost orange. She had lost weight, and her dentures were out. She stared into the distance and breathed a rattling breath.
I pulled up a chair. I had brought the same color nail polish I'd painted her nails with last time. I had brought hand lotion. I noted the pretty flowers and the pictures of her grandkids around the room. I did not want to pull her hands from under her comforter. They seemed to belong there.
I put my hand under the comforter and held hers gently. I would like to tell you that she squeezed back. She did not. Her hand was very warm.
I sang her some songs -- Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, and Patsy Cline. Lochlan played with my phone and ignored us, but when I started "I Walk the Line," he stood up in the chair, watched her face, and sang along with me. I would like to say she inclined her head or fluttered her eyes in response. Perhaps there was a jerk of movement. I think not.
I cried a little, and it made Lochlan nervous. He said she wasn't feeling well and probably had the flu. I said she was going to die. He asked why. I told him a long story about plants, and how they are seeds, then plants, then they bear fruit, then winter comes and they start to lose their green, and their energy returns to nature. I said humans are like that, but over 90 years instead of a season.
I stood up so I could reach her over the bedrail, stroked her hair. I told her she had been a very good grandmother. I told her she had always been strong and brave, and she was doing something very strong and brave now.
I said to her the little rhyme she always said to me -- and I always say to my kids -- when she tucked me in at night: "I love you little, I love you big, I love you like a little pig."
I grabbed my purse to go, but Lochlan seemed to think it was vitally important that I say it again. So for a second time, I tucked her in to sleep with her own loving rhyme.
We left.
A few hours later, she died.
I am so happy, so relieved, so at peace with how she went -- quickly, with little pain, on her own terms and on her own timeline.
I am so lucky to have had her for 42 years. I am so glad that she was agile and healthy almost to the very end.
I am so grateful to have been loved so well, to know I was loved, to have her know that I loved her.
I am so sad and heartbroken and grief-stricken that I will never again get to spend time with her, hear her laugh, hear her cuss. I passed the ice cream fountain down the street from us tonight and mused that I will never again call her while we walk there, which I used to do in nice weather. I suspect I will experience a number of these surprising mini-griefs in the coming months.
I don't know what else to say. I have a lot more to say.
Tonight I tucked in the sweet boy I wasn't sure I'd have, but she helped me confront my bullshit excuses.
Then I tucked in the girl who, in the first days of her life, surprised us all by making a face that was unmistakably Granny Vida's face.
My dad is the fruit she bore. I am the fruit he bore. They are the fruit I bore. Someday all our energy will return to the earth. This is okay. It is also devastating.
Sometimes I worry that I don't show love very well. I don't know that washing some dishes does it, or painting her nails. I would rather pull an opposite-Indiana-Jones and stuff my heart right into her through her ribcage to know she really felt it.
Calm down, it's a metaphor.
When we were gone to Oregon for Spring Break, she was transferred into a hospice facility. I worried she would die when I was gone. I told myself it didn't matter. I ached. She didn't die while we were gone. I felt guilty that the force of my will kept her alive when she was probably ready to go. I do not believe in mystical shit like the force of my will. Also I completely do. Also I was relieved.
I did not talk about my grandmother while we were in Oregon, even though my family there is so wonderful and sweet and caring and would have wrapped me in love. I did not want to cry there. I desperately wanted to tell them, to cry, to be wrapped in love.
I am not complaining, but my life with an autistic kid keeps me pretty scheduled-up. We have, at the moment, two days of in-home therapy and one at a clinic across town. I could not go see her Monday or Tuesday.
My dad came over Tuesday to take Azadeh to dance class, and I talked with him about going to see her. He thought it was pointless. To do what *I* needed to do, but if it was for her... well, he didn't think I would really be able to offer her any comfort.
I wanted to give her comfort. I wanted to have the comfort myself of seeing her one last time. I desperately did not want to see her near death. It felt important not to abandon her on her deathbed.
I went today. I got there at 3:30 with Lochlan, sat him in the chair at the foot of the bed that did not have a good view of her, as she looked something less than human. She was so yellow as to be almost orange. She had lost weight, and her dentures were out. She stared into the distance and breathed a rattling breath.
I pulled up a chair. I had brought the same color nail polish I'd painted her nails with last time. I had brought hand lotion. I noted the pretty flowers and the pictures of her grandkids around the room. I did not want to pull her hands from under her comforter. They seemed to belong there.
I put my hand under the comforter and held hers gently. I would like to tell you that she squeezed back. She did not. Her hand was very warm.
I sang her some songs -- Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, and Patsy Cline. Lochlan played with my phone and ignored us, but when I started "I Walk the Line," he stood up in the chair, watched her face, and sang along with me. I would like to say she inclined her head or fluttered her eyes in response. Perhaps there was a jerk of movement. I think not.
I cried a little, and it made Lochlan nervous. He said she wasn't feeling well and probably had the flu. I said she was going to die. He asked why. I told him a long story about plants, and how they are seeds, then plants, then they bear fruit, then winter comes and they start to lose their green, and their energy returns to nature. I said humans are like that, but over 90 years instead of a season.
I stood up so I could reach her over the bedrail, stroked her hair. I told her she had been a very good grandmother. I told her she had always been strong and brave, and she was doing something very strong and brave now.
I said to her the little rhyme she always said to me -- and I always say to my kids -- when she tucked me in at night: "I love you little, I love you big, I love you like a little pig."
I grabbed my purse to go, but Lochlan seemed to think it was vitally important that I say it again. So for a second time, I tucked her in to sleep with her own loving rhyme.
We left.
A few hours later, she died.
I am so happy, so relieved, so at peace with how she went -- quickly, with little pain, on her own terms and on her own timeline.
I am so lucky to have had her for 42 years. I am so glad that she was agile and healthy almost to the very end.
I am so grateful to have been loved so well, to know I was loved, to have her know that I loved her.
I am so sad and heartbroken and grief-stricken that I will never again get to spend time with her, hear her laugh, hear her cuss. I passed the ice cream fountain down the street from us tonight and mused that I will never again call her while we walk there, which I used to do in nice weather. I suspect I will experience a number of these surprising mini-griefs in the coming months.
I don't know what else to say. I have a lot more to say.
Tonight I tucked in the sweet boy I wasn't sure I'd have, but she helped me confront my bullshit excuses.
Then I tucked in the girl who, in the first days of her life, surprised us all by making a face that was unmistakably Granny Vida's face.
My dad is the fruit she bore. I am the fruit he bore. They are the fruit I bore. Someday all our energy will return to the earth. This is okay. It is also devastating.
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