robotech_master (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
robotech_master) wrote2013-10-31 06:18 am
robotech_master) wrote2013-10-31 06:18 am
Saying goodbye to Granny
So I was down to visit the parents last weekend, and stopped in to visit my 98-year-old grandmother at the nursing home where she has a room. (She's either 97 or 98, I never can remember which—not that it makes much difference overall. She is actually the daughter of a Civil War veteran, a Union soldier who had her when he was about 80 himself.) My Dad took her for a walk around the block in her wheelchair. And though she doesn't have much money now, she nonetheless managed to give me a $5 bill, which I certainly couldn't politely refuse and for which I thanked her effusively.
It only just occurred to me that, since I'm moving to Indianapolis now and have no easy way of getting back here for visits, that may very well have been the last time I ever saw her alive. That's kind of a sobering thought. She's the only grandparent I have left, and as such has been in my life ever since I've had my life.
I remember how, when we lived in Jonesboro, we used to come up and visit her and her husband a couple of times a year. Then when we moved up to Cassville we'd go over and see her more often. She used to make the most terrific Sunday or holiday dinners, with rolls that were incredibly tasty (especially with brown gravy poured over them, as I used to have for a treat after I'd finished everything else). I also remember it as one of the few times I got to have real butter in those days, as at the time my parents were under the mistaken impression that margarine was somehow more healthful.
Their old farmhouse was a magical place. It had two storeys. The only other house I'd spent time in with two storeys was my other grandparents' in Columbia. I guess at the time I tended to associate two-storey houses with grandparents. But all the living was done on the lower floor; the upstairs wasn't a place we often went. As such, the bedrooms up there tended to have the slightly spooky feeling of mausoleums: old, unused, never-changing. But there was an extra bathroom up there, with an old AM radio in it dating back I think to the '60s, that saw use when the other bathrooms were busy. It was a bit chilly, but that was all right.
There were also bookshelves up there filled with old, yellowing paperbacks to which a voracious reader like me could turn when there wasn't anything else I felt like doing. I had my first introduction to the book 2001: A Space Odyssey up there (I couldn't finish it; I got turned off of reading it most of the way to the end), and read many a Louis L'amour book.
In later years, she moved to assisted living at the Methodist Manor, where she had her own little apartment. My parents would bring her to church every week, and I would get to see her when we were visiting. (She fell asleep during the sermons, but that was all right.) But lately, she got frail enough that they had to move her to smaller quarters in their nursing home wing, and that's where she is now.
It kind of feels, I don't know, like I didn't properly get to say goodbye. If it had struck me at the time that this might be the last time I would get to see her, I might have done something different, said something different. But then, Granny's so frail now anyway that perhaps the knowledge I'm leaving might be an unpleasant shock. So maybe it's best that my possible last living memory of her is of her kindness to a grandson, and that grandson's thanks.
It only just occurred to me that, since I'm moving to Indianapolis now and have no easy way of getting back here for visits, that may very well have been the last time I ever saw her alive. That's kind of a sobering thought. She's the only grandparent I have left, and as such has been in my life ever since I've had my life.
I remember how, when we lived in Jonesboro, we used to come up and visit her and her husband a couple of times a year. Then when we moved up to Cassville we'd go over and see her more often. She used to make the most terrific Sunday or holiday dinners, with rolls that were incredibly tasty (especially with brown gravy poured over them, as I used to have for a treat after I'd finished everything else). I also remember it as one of the few times I got to have real butter in those days, as at the time my parents were under the mistaken impression that margarine was somehow more healthful.
Their old farmhouse was a magical place. It had two storeys. The only other house I'd spent time in with two storeys was my other grandparents' in Columbia. I guess at the time I tended to associate two-storey houses with grandparents. But all the living was done on the lower floor; the upstairs wasn't a place we often went. As such, the bedrooms up there tended to have the slightly spooky feeling of mausoleums: old, unused, never-changing. But there was an extra bathroom up there, with an old AM radio in it dating back I think to the '60s, that saw use when the other bathrooms were busy. It was a bit chilly, but that was all right.
There were also bookshelves up there filled with old, yellowing paperbacks to which a voracious reader like me could turn when there wasn't anything else I felt like doing. I had my first introduction to the book 2001: A Space Odyssey up there (I couldn't finish it; I got turned off of reading it most of the way to the end), and read many a Louis L'amour book.
In later years, she moved to assisted living at the Methodist Manor, where she had her own little apartment. My parents would bring her to church every week, and I would get to see her when we were visiting. (She fell asleep during the sermons, but that was all right.) But lately, she got frail enough that they had to move her to smaller quarters in their nursing home wing, and that's where she is now.
It kind of feels, I don't know, like I didn't properly get to say goodbye. If it had struck me at the time that this might be the last time I would get to see her, I might have done something different, said something different. But then, Granny's so frail now anyway that perhaps the knowledge I'm leaving might be an unpleasant shock. So maybe it's best that my possible last living memory of her is of her kindness to a grandson, and that grandson's thanks.