six months...

Grandma has been bat shit crazy for as long as I’ve known her. Since she developed jimmy legs shes been considerably worse, the effect more acute with the onset of sundowners and a minor case of Alzheimer’s. Over the past thirty years she has been successful at driving a wedge in between her and everybody who has cared about her, an innate ability to place everybody at a distance so when it is time to say goodbye nobody would feel like they missed her.

She has been sick for some time now. So convoluted in her own past memories and pain that perhaps cruelly, maybe callously there have been several conversations that, if she were a dog, we most likely would’ve put her down, put her out of her misery.

Ma told me today she spoke with the doctors and who informed her that, with the pain medication Grandma is about to go on Gram will most likely have six months to live. For Grandma, for her mixed mash of a brain, for her tired and worn out body this will come as sweet relief.

To my Ma and Grandpa this will be the end of something far greater. She is a beautiful and strong woman. Her own mother died when she was a child, she was then raised by her sister who left her when her sister was married. She earned a degree in chemistry and parlayed that into a master’s degree in music. She taught small children, she volunteered in the church. Looking back at her now I see all of those beautiful moments that I’ve taken for granted: piano lessons, the odd book that she thought I would like, her appreciation and patience for the music I would make her listen to.

To that extent I don’t know if this is why I feel sad, hollow. Death becomes us all, it is unavoidable and for some people it is the final and only real grace they seek. It is for those of us left behind to feel this emptiness. Grieving for not being able to see her, grieving for those that have depended on her for so long.

My family is small and scattered across the Midwest. Counting both sides of the family, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents plus my immediate family, there are only twelve of us. So when the family gathers it is a time for jokes, drinks but mostly, and the greatest part, the stories. And so I’ll end this with one of my favorite Grandma stories:

Junior year of college Jordan, Greggy and I made a pilgrimage down to Madison to attend a Hawaiian party. We woke up the next day hungover, maybe still drunk but cognizant enough to make the trip over to my grandparent’s house.

We have never been a family of cooks, in fact, as a rule we generally don’t eat. However there is a rich tradition that when we do gather we go out to lunch. That day we headed to Irishman’s Bay the restaurant my grandparents ate at every Saturday. We rode over in two cars with most of my friends, probably Greggy or Dre, helping my hobbled Grandpa into the restaurant leaving me to help Grandma.

She exited the car looking perplexed, asking me if I knew where her keys were. To which I replied that the car was still running; her keys were still in the ignition. She, at least that day, had a defensible reason for being in such a state, however. My grandpa’s brother was coming in from New York with his new lady friend which made Grandma nervous and inform the table, “And I don’t even think that they drink.”

She has always been off in her own little world, though I don’t know if she has ever been comfortable, even there. My favorite line from this story takes place after we sat down at the table. She looked everybody in the eye to make sure nobody was crazy and asked in a calculated manner, “So, are the drinks ordered?”

They, of course, had been ordered. Her glass of cheep, boxed Chablis was always waiting for her at the anticipation of her coming. She is bat shit crazy. Another one of the reasons we love her.