Uncut

This is a completed essay I have rewritten and taken from parts of past blogs about my grandmother.

Towards the end of last semester, I was given an all-expenses-paid trip to Florida. It was not some last minute “the semester is done I need to escape my life” whim or even an excuse to get away from the impending snowfall. I had been thinking lately I would like to take a vacation somewhere warm, we all fantasize about California dreaming when the temperature begins to drop, but I certainly would not have wanted events to unfold as they did for a reason to go. I was flying to Florida because my grandmother had dementia. I was flying to Florida to see if my own grandmother still remembered me. I had not given her very much reason to in the past, even before I knew of her disease. I hadn’t seen my grandmother in years. In fact I hadn’t seen any of my father’s side of the family, the limited amount I knew, in quite a long time. Hell, I hardly even see my father…I admit to having a habit of pushing away all family ties, with the exception of my sister, who for the most part is an extension of me. Families are troubled, most of them anyway, my solution usually being to just abstain, instead of involving myself with the problems of people I am forced to care about only based on our mutual blood relation.

There was a time when I was much closer to my father, and likewise my extended family through him. These were the happy days when my parents were still married. Since my mother was a practicing lawyer she was often kept late at work and my father was the one predominantly looking after me. My afternoons with him were never dull; we would go rock climbing in the park, dress in costume, and read fantastical stories until I fell asleep. This was before my sister was born, and my father was like a shining knight to me. In fact, he actually was rather knight like, with a love of medieval weaponry and knowledge of fencing; he even participated in the local Renaissance fairs. I could not be more ecstatic to be the quite literal interpretation of daddy’s little princess. But one day that all faded, in typical divorce scenario number one, the other woman, who would soon grow to be my wicked stepmother. On the morning my real mother made the discovery of his betrayal, my father was meant to be visiting in Florida. His home kingdom was under the impression that he had gone to see his mother alone; we were mistaken. I awoke to the wails of my mother scorning my grandmother, threatening that she would never see her grandchildren again unless she disclosed the location of my father. I was only about eight years old, but I knew exactly what had happened. Never had I felt so betrayed. That day I lost a part of myself, a bond with my father, a trust. His entire side of the family was in on the charade, and I blamed them entirely. I didn’t realize then how true the threat of my mother’s words would come to be. I saw my grandmother only once after the incident, and that was on the day of my father’s wedding to his mistress.

But upon the news of my grandmother’s illness, I regretted my notorious cold-heartedness, and the times I had reproached her for forgetting to send a birthday card. Whether this forgetfulness being due to her condition or our mutual disinterest in each other’s lives, I suddenly wished to amend it. I felt incredibly sorrowful for her life of solitude. A number of years prior her husband Perry had died. I neither remember the date nor felt remorse for his passing; all my life he had been a grandfather figure, but I was hardly able to say I loved him. In contrast, when the completely deranged grandfather on my mother’s side passed, I wept. I had affection for that crazy old man whom I saw far more often growing up. We had shared distinct experiences, gotten on each other’s nerves, as two people from polar opposite generations often do. Gran Perry however sat like a stone cold statue through my vague childhood memories; he was always poised, usually reading or engaged in some other quiet activity. Since his passing my father’s mother had lived in Florida all alone, developing her disease.

All I had known of dementia was what I had seen in the movie The Notebook, and this was certainly not that love story. Her Noah Calhoun was gone, not there to retell the story of their love every day, or die together in blissful remembrance. I wondered how the reunion with one of her only two granddaughters would be, if it would be as when Allie greeted her own children and grandchildren, as strangers. The unhappy circumstance of my arrival, to move all the belongings of my grandmother’s life into boxes for her new existence of constant supervision, would hopefully provide some catharsis, some means to make up for lost time. And as for the forgetfulness on both our parts, I wanted to remember how to be a granddaughter, develop some fond reflection of her that would be worth remembering.

I returned home from my journey to Florida with a mix of emotions. After a tumultuous journey resulting in an unexpected night spent in Chicago because of a missed flight, I arrived to be greeted by my odd father and his even more eccentric mother. She hobbled over, a petite figure of gray-haired old age. Her general appearance hadn’t changed much, but there was a distinct sluggishness that hadn’t been there before, as if she had lost her enthusiasm for living.  Her name was Margret, but was always called Peggy, Gran Peggy to her grandchildren; her own two children were required to call her mother. She had what had once been short tight curls of brown hair, straight from a 1940’s flapper movie, now faded to loose and grey, but still maintaining their dated look. She had followed the family tradition and been in the Air Force in her youth, my father was a Marine; back when the military still had some sense of dignity. Later she became a schoolteacher in New York, boring them to death with French lessons. My younger sister had been named after both her grandmothers, with the name Marguerite Elizabeth, (the French form of Margret). Within the first few minutes of my presence, my grandmother made her discontent known, relating my mention of my sister being 15 now to her own experience of being 15, and finding her own father dead in his bedroom. I didn’t know how to respond. I mean I knew this trip would be depressing, but geez, right off the bat? I just looked at her, imagining what that must feel like. To ignore the presence of your father is one thing, but to find him unconscious and truly lose him forever—I wasn’t ready for that. I suppose no one ever is.

When we returned to the house from the airport it looked very much as I had remembered it in my childhood, except now I had a cell phone, which received absolutely no service in that wilderness. We were literally in the middle of nowhere, it was not Orlando Florida, or Miami, or anywhere people would deem enjoyable, it was remote little Panama City, where the old go to die. The house itself was cozy, secluded, a haven of the past. I had not visited the house since I was a young girl; my Little Mermaid bed sheets were still there to prove it. The places I had made forts, and played contentedly were still there, but I hardly knew them anymore, the whole house felt cramped with belongings that only had the eerie sense of being vaguely familiar. Trinkets from all over the world still lay in their nooks, but I had come to destroy them, rob them of their comfortable resting spots, long accumulating dust. The chair Gran Perry used to sit in still remained, long abandoned, its purpose having been served. I wondered: did my grandmother ever truly accept his passing? Or did she sit there in her rocking chair, contentedly imagining her partner to still be adjacent to her? Long before computers made card-games like solitaire so simple, I remember them both playing simultaneously with each other, but alone, using real cards, over and over again. In that moment I could picture them there, a still frame from the past, a past I was now viewing in photo albums, and placing into boxes. Perhaps her dementia stemmed from not wanting to remember her current predicament; forgetting was easier than accepting a life of solitude that was her reality and her future.

But in the house surrounded by all the friendly reminders of her excursions in happier times, she was sustained; even that was being taken now. The last freedoms of her life were fleeting; because of the imminent strokes she could no longer drive, and no longer take care of herself, and no amount of jolly books or precious dolls could save her from this fate. I was brought in as the undertaker, to make judgment on what possessions would go and stay, taking these playfellows and casting them into the darkness of a box, suffocated in bubble wrap, the last of her comforts lay in my hands to protect. How she pined over the loss, each ornament, no matter how insignificant it may appear to the outside observer, each had traveled far, intact with its own story. Many had names, and endearing memories. This house of junk was to my grandmother a house of companions, not all of which would get to make the journey to her new home that was to be much smaller. She was forced to even attempt to pass off some of her belongings to me, handbags and shoes, clothes she had worn long ago but had hoarded for years. These were in her more glamorous times of large sunglasses, and flashy coats, heels and purses, when her and her love would gallivant across the world. My grandmother kept referring to me as “Twiggy,” and other odd terms relating to my slenderness or of affection. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was using these nicknames simply as terms of endearment, or because she could not remember my real name.

To ail her pains I watched my grandmother drink down her grief, the last mournful goodbye to the possessions she had grown to love, some even older than myself, and which certainly kept her more company. But worse than the drowning of the sorrows (which we are all entitled to do at times), was the questioning of God. How it pained my heart to hear her ask an imaginary higher being why this fate was hers to endure. She would ask my father, who was far from a Christian man, but he did his best to sympathize and soothe her. We were like jigsaw pieces of a family, perhaps we had once complemented each other as a set, but over time our pieces had so contorted they could no longer fit together as one. My father had never really known what to say in difficult situations and this was no different; maybe that was our biggest problem, an inability to communicate. The overwhelming reality of the situation was draining enough, I thought, but how horrible it must be to conceive a holy presence that actually condemned one to live so miserably. I wanted to tell my grandmother it wasn’t true, that life is a bitch and then you die, there is no one pulling the strings. Would it have been comforting revealing my atheism to her, or the final straw of despair? I hadn’t the courage to find out.

The house is barren now, all possessions sold or given to charitable causes, never to be adored by her anymore. It was sweet when I saw it at the end of Toy Story 3, giving away your old things to make another happy. However, when your life has been dwindled down and is nothing more than the objects you have acquired over time, the losing of them is monumental and not so heartwarming. She now resides in Nashville, in the home of my aunt, her husband and her two young boys. A drastic life alteration certainly, as I sense she hasn’t the energy to indulge in another generation of energized young children at this stage of her serene life. But I sincerely hope my grandmother can find some sort of peace without her many belongings, and can forgive whoever she thinks lies in the sky who has taken her beloved objects, her husband, and her memory from her.