Grandma

I read the headline of an article on how documenting your day helps maintain your memory. I didn’t read it nor will I link to it for a couple of reasons.

1.) It’s so obviously true. Reading something that you wrote down based on personal experience returns you to that moment, even if it’s like looking through a hazy mirror.
2.) Because my memory is so foggy, I need to practice using it and not rely on the internet to fill in the blanks.
3.) I want to write more on what’s in my head right now; not what use to be or even what could be.

That means things won’t be that interesting here because they will be garbled, hashed, and more sloppily thrown into the white space than ever before. Worse, I’m going to try literally working through lost words in my vocabulary as I type instead of depending on an electronic thesauruses. I’m tired of the words always on the tip of my tongue but never passing my lips. I’m sure that has a medical term. In fact, I know I’ve looked it up before, but I’m not going to now. I will use spellcheck, so for that at least you can be grateful.

According to my TimeHop app, it was three years ago I scheduled a neurological appointment for my mom to discuss her own edge-teetering dementia. The doctor said Alzheimer’s but my sisters refuse to make that leap. There’s a difference and I suppose as an outsider you can say it’s obvious what those differences are, but I can feel it. It makes no difference when you see her hazel eyes clouded with the inability to recognize me, even if it’s for a moment or several seconds. I see confusion and hurt.

At Thanksgiving, she and my six-year-old daughter, Aitch, disappeared into her room. I was busy with prepping the meal, but later Aitch said that grandma Jean sat on the floor and watched her play, giggling at her antics. There was no conversation. I think that’s why grandma slipped away. Aitch has no expectations from her grandma to answer questions about what craft she’s been keeping herself busy with, or if she’s done Christmas shopping, or has she started baking cookies.

After we ate, I asked my mom who was seated at the table, if she wanted apple or pumpkin pie. She chose apple. I went to the kitchen and plated up a slice and added a dollop of ice cream. I then asked her if she wanted a fork or a spoon. She looked up and through me, her face blank, and shrugged. In that instant, I knew…I knew that she didn’t know why I’d ask her if she wanted a fork or a spoon. I calmly rephrased the question, “With your apple pie and ice cream, would you rather use a fork or a spoon to eat it?” Inside I crumbled.

The mother of a friend of mine died a couple weeks ago after losing a painful battle with cancer. Following the visitation as I was walking away from the church with my husband, Sparring Partner, I must have made said something trite like “I can’t imagine what she’s going through,” and in an uncharacteristically harsh response, Sparring Partner said, “No, you can’t. Some day you will.” His dad’s death a year and a half ago still leaves him raw.

The thing is I have already lost my mom. Physically she can sit beside me, warm in the way that a body pumping blood is, but she’s gone. I can’t talk to her like she’s my mom anymore. She doesn’t care that Aitch is a first grader and wants to be a clothing designer. A few years ago, she’d laugh and tell stories the hundreds magazine clippings of fashions I have glued to into tablets, or of the dozens of dress sketches I had that to were in a cardboard box in the attic. She doesn’t care that my son, Doodicus, is a year away from a school driving permit or that he went to his school dance. My son will never hear the story from grandma Jean about my first traffic ticket even though she was in the passenger seat when it happened. There’s no reflection or magnification of my pride, fear, humor in her eyes that anyone else might get when they talk about their family.

Grandma Wanna Be

Tonight we were at supper with my in-laws and their visiting family. My husband’s niece was there as well with her children, including their youngest who recently turned two. One of the visiting family members, Sally, repeatedly requested that the two-year old come over and sit on her lap “…because I don’t have any grandchildren yet.”

The first time she said it, I didn’t think anything of it, but by the third time I was ready to smack her. As if saying that would suddenly convince the two-year-old that “Oh! Hey! I could totally pretend to be your grandchild, Strange Lady I Just Met Today…if I knew what a “grandchild” was, but you know how it is, being TWO and all!”

You know how people make vague announcement, like “Man, could things get any worse?!! *sigh!*” and you know the only reason their doing is is to get you sucked into whatever woe-is-me story they have going on? Well, I just knew that’s what she was doing with that “I don’t have any grandchildren yet” lead. However, since I’m totally antisocial and of the I-don’t-give-a-fuck personality, she unfortunately was barking up the wrong tree.

Luckily (??) someone else finally picked up on her sad sighs and asked her about her children. As I helped Aitch cut up her food, I eavesdropped.

“Well, I just really want a grandchild, but you see, my son, he’s been married now for a couple of years. He’s 31 and I just know that if they haven’t had children by now, they never will.”

I can’t really explain why this made me unreasonably angry, but it did enough that as soon as Sparring Partner and I were in the privacy of the car, I screeched at him. “Maybe they CAN’T have children?? Did she ever think of that?! If she’s constantly moaning about it to us, what kind of guilt trip is she laying on her son and daughter-in-law?”

If HE is 31, then we can safely presume she’s 31 or younger. Hell, I was 34 when I had my son! My husband was 37!! It always makes me uncomfortable when parents talk about their children giving them grandchildren because that means they are thinking about their sweet baby getting it on and conceiving. I don’t want that visual. Aside from that, some couples may not even want to have children. Being 30 seems so, so young to me. Many 30 year-olds don’t even a career, for heaven’s sake.

Having gone through years of infertility and miscarriages and dozens of embarrassing medical procedures, if I had to add my Mom’s (or Mothers-in-law) disappointment over the lack of grandchildren, I’m sure I would have gone straight to Batshit Crazy Hell. Someday, I hope I do live long enough to have grandchildren, but I would rather my children simply have fulfilling and rewarding lives that DON’T include me.