My Land!

While I was off gallivanting around at Saturn Booksellers, my biological father was leaving a message on my answering machine about my grandmother.  "Your grandma's not doing too well," he said.  "She's starting to kind of shut down."

Shut down.  My grandma's starting to shut down.  My grandma, who once rose at 4:00 every day and provided meals and cared for the children and ran the errands and milked the cows and fed the cats and took care of the whole house.  My grandma who knew everyone in town and all their stories, who (like me) made friends in line at the gas station, who would talk your ear off until you walked away.  My grandma who would play cards until the wee hours of the morning, because she wouldn't let you go to bed until she won.  And you couldn't "let" her win, oh no, it had to feel real.  How does a person like her begin this process, begin to "shut down"? Well, I'll tell you.

First, you lose your sister.  Your only sister.  Your older sister, who had been there every moment of your life.  Your best friend in the world, the person you went to for every problem, discussion, joy, anything.  Your sister who always gave in to you when you were growing up, who pin curled your hair every week, who took care of you, even when you were taking care of others.

Next, you lose your husband of 61 years.  Your husband, who always kept life interesting by trying to find a way to contradict your every word, but still love you with every fiber of his being.  Your husband, with whom you lived and worked, raised two children, milked hundreds of cows, farmed acre after acre of land.  Your best card partner, your musical accompaniment in church (saxophone or clarinet?), the other main character in every story of your adult life.

After you've lost the two of them, you try to find a niche in your new life.  You move away from the farm, into town, into the house where your husband's mother lived.  You bring some of your things, you take in a cat, you try to feel at home in a new place.  But, still, your family worries, and so you move again, after a while, into an apartment in town, where maybe there will be more people to talk to.

You bring your furniture to remind you of home, a chair, a lamp, a mirror, but most things don't fit, and you have to get all new.  You start a new hobby, puzzles, and hope that this will help to fill some of the emptiness that you feel.  But, already, the shutting down has begun, as you drive less and less, and you feel more and more separate from your little family, your church, and your friends.

Then, as if you have not lost enough, you lose your son.  He is your oldest, your firstborn, the one who has lived the closest.  He has come to visit often, daily even, and helped to care for animals, your home, for you.  It is unexpected, and it is a blow from which you will never really recover.  The shutting down is accelerated a little, as another piece of you is buried beneath the ground.

After this, you slowly withdraw.  Your remaining son, your daughter-in-law, your grandchildren, they all try to keep you going in this world, but it is the next world that has a stronger call.  Your family tells you stories of the here and now, but these are not your children anymore, or even your grandchildren.  They are your great-grandchildren, and the distance in generations makes them almost strangers, characters in a book you once read, a special fondness for them is all that you can muster anymore.  You lose friends, lifelong friends, and reminisce in your own head about when you were the young ones, caring for the old.

You move to assisted living, where your family knows you'll be well cared for, but where you feel you're being put "out to pasture."  After a while, you no longer attend meals, or take walks down the hall, but prefer sitting in your room playing solitaire on your Kindle to pretending to listen to other ladies repeat the same stories of their former lives.

You're not ill, you're not depressed, you're ready.  Ready to hang up the hat you've worn on this earth in exchange for your halo.

My grandmother is shutting down.  She has been for years.  Slowly, at first, but now at a speed that my father just can't take.  Selfishly, I want to medicate her.  I want her pulled out of this funk and put back into the goofy lady who'd exclaim, "My land!" when I'd trump her ace.  I want her to be the grandma who always played dominoes with me, who called me "Lollie," who gave me a red hot at night when she took her pills (so I wouldn't feel left out), who joked with me about everything, who told me point blank "I was pregnant when I got married, you know," even though she'd never spoken about it with another soul.

Grams, remember when you used to slide your seat back and play "low rider" in the yellow car, curlers in your hair, on the way home from Aunt Sylvie's?  Remember when we used to mow the lawn at the first farm?  Remember when you were so mad at me because I wouldn't take the dead mouse in the bucket out to the barn, and Aunt Sylvie carried the bucket out for me?  Remember all the times I came downstairs in my pajamas and socks, and you made me crisp white toast with little slices of real butter?  Remember when you taught me to make butterscotch pie, and I just plain couldn't beat the egg whites hard enough into meringue?  Remember when you'd tell me stories about when you and Pa first got married, and you kept threatening to go live with your mother?  Remember watching "Days of Our Lives" and "Family Feud" (we always wanted to go on as "The Good Family")?  Remember tiny milky ways in the freezer, Pa's kettle popcorn, chicken and homemade noodles, cake with caramel frosting?  Remember saying "Laurie, your own grandmother?!" when I'd take the deuce of diamonds in Kerseiney (I think it's actually called "Casino," Grams, but I'd never call it anything else)?  Remember when we'd go in the camper to the auction and get chicken barbecue and I'd be terrified to go in the barn, but you'd hold my hand, even when I was way too old?  Remember, Grams, remember? I do.  I always will.

Selfishly, I want you, that Grandma, to stay forever.  But, I know.  When I go to sleep each night next to my best friend, the love of my life, I know that, if he goes before me, I will begin to shut down, too.  I know Pa's got a seat saved for you at the card table, with Ike and Peg, and maybe Aunt Sylvie's learned to play, who knows.  Shoot the moon, Grams.  Shoot the moon.