Grandma

The smell kept me from pretending this was Grandma’s living room. I could explain away the nursing home furniture -- the couches and chairs with their slippery, scrubbable surfaces. I missed the golden-rod colored couch that always rested against the living room’s north wall in Grandma’s small house, the blue chair that clicked as it spun all the way around, the clock ticking on the wall hanging above the desk in a corner. Her desk was full of cubbyholes stuffed with airmail envelopes from Norway and black-and-white photos of people I barely recognized. For a few moments I imagined I was eight years old again – a long time ago, more than 25 years, but I couldn’t get away from the smell. Gone was the mixture of cigarette smoke, coffee, and caramel rolls baking, the memory rudely replaced by the odor of bodily functions, the kind kids snickered about as ten-year-olds, the odor of slightly unwashed bodies and the underlying current of disinfectant. I couldn’t make that go away. An involuntary deep breath abruptly rushed me back to reality. My Grandma had been an incredible woman and because of the disease, Alzheimer’s, that was gradually consuming her mind, she was being torn from me a little bit at a time.

The first sign that something was out of sorts was the year I turned 27. I didn’t receive a birthday card from Grandma. She always prided herself on making certain that greetings arrived on the exact day of the birthday, not one day late, not two days early. She trusted the U.S. Postal System would do their job if she did hers. Grandma even enclosed a few dollars from her meager Social Security income with each card. That year there was nothing, not late, not early. I didn’t say anything to anyone, not wanting to sound greedy as if I were missing the money, but I did miss the sentiment.

Today, Grandma sat tilted to one side in a wheelchair. A scarf covered her wisps of hair that before, had always been concealed by a carefully groomed wig. Grandma was dressed in one of her usual polyester outfits, but now it was stained down the front where some of her lunch landed. Grandma smiled readily, but the smile didn’t go all of the way to her eyes – only a blankness looked back at me.

My Grandma always was a powerful force in my life. My earliest memories are of her alone. Grandpa died when I was two years old. Grandma chose, for reasons she never shared with me, to live the rest of her life without a spouse. She was alone, without marital companionship, but never lacked friends. The coffee pot percolated constantly at Grandma’s. She kept a stash of homemade caramel rolls or a cake in the kitchen ready to share with friends and family who dropped by throughout the day and sometimes far into the night. Mavis, the woman from across the street; Thelva, the Avon lady; Joyce, the neighborhood busybody – all left cigarette butts ringed with bright red and pink lipstick in the ashtray on Grandma’s coffee table as they gossiped far into the night.

I didn’t know that today would be the last time I saw Grandma communicate in a meaningful way. On the television, Lawrence Welk and his orchestra began to play the hymn, “In the Garden.” Grandma started humming the melody. Mom immediately picked up on Grandma’s interest and started singing the words. I was stunned to hear Grandma switch to harmony and begin to vocalize the lyrics. Even though she didn’t know my name or that she had just eaten chicken for lunch, Grandma knew all of the words to every verse of that song. I could not stop the tears from flowing down my cheeks when I heard my mom urging Grandma, “Sing, Mother, sing,” as Mom too, seemed to realize this was a significant moment. When the song ended, Grandma sank back into her blank stare.

Through the preceding few years, visits to Grandma’s house became less frequent. One trip, however, stands out in my memory. My aunts, mother, and I traveled to Minot to prepare a party for Grandma’s 80th birthday. Little and big, the changes we experienced upon walking through the door of her home were undeniable. The kitchen’s overwhelming stench smacked us in the face. A small amount of detective work brought me to one of the pantry shelves where Grandma had placed several cans of orange juice concentrate. Maybe she just had a “senior moment” and forgot, but Grandma’s kitchen never had crumbs on the counter or a dirty dish in the sink, reason told me.

Now, this afternoon, Grandma no longer recognized me, her granddaughter. I tried to remind her of what I thought we meant to one another. I introduced myself and even used the private, childish nickname that was just between the two of us. There was no light in her eyes -- I was just a nice lady who came to see her, gave her a kiss on the cheek, a gentle hug, and chattered for a while about things she didn’t seem to understand. My “I love you Grandma” and “good-bye” were muted as I choked back tears.

.....

Several months later, at her funeral, I felt relief. I didn’t mourn for the woman that lay in the casket. I had been grieving in small amounts over the years, ever since we heard that her mind would be taken from us. The woman I had adored and who had loved me back with a love that was so huge that each of her 11 grandchildren presumed they were her favorite had been gone from me for a long time. This day was a formality and became the time we could acknowledge to one another, and those who had cared for her in her emptiness, what an incredible woman my Grandmother had been.