Holden is not very close to his grandmother. Obviously. We don't learn much about her. She's got money. She's losing her mind. She's old as hell. Actually, Holden thinks any adult is old as hell, so Holden's grandmother could be Sofia Vergara. It's all relative.
My wife's grandmother is 95 years old. She's been in a nursing home for several years. Her memory isn't the greatest. She doesn't remember who's alive and who's dead any more. At her last birthday party, she kept on saying, "Can I got to bed now?" Her husband and two kids have all passed away. She seems reduced. Half a person.
This afternoon, my wife's grandma fell out of her bed at the nursing home and sliced open her head. She's got 18 stitches in her scalp and looks like Frankenstein's monster. I'm ashamed to say that I haven't seen her since her birthday party in September. When my daughter was younger, we used to visit her on Halloween after trick-or-treating. We don't do that any more. That last time we tried, her grandmother was asleep and wouldn't wake up.
She's not the woman I used to know. She used to be a cool old lady, hopping on buses to go to the casino, swimming two times a week with her friends, playing cards late into the night. I miss who she was. I sometimes wonder if she has moments of clarity, times when she looks around her room at the nursing home and thinks, "What the hell am I doing here?"
I hope that doesn't happen. I hope her mind stays in a place where loss hasn't touched her, where grief is some distant country, where her only worry is whether she has enough quarters for the slot machines.
Saint Marty wouldn't mind visiting that place with her for a little while.
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| Holden's granny |
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