November 13: Grandmother, All Her Marbles, Wife's Grandma

...I have this grandmother that's quite lavish with her dough.  She doesn't have all her marbles any more--she's old as hell--and she keeps sending me money for my birthday about four times a year...

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.

Holden's granny

April 8: Surprise Blessings

Sometimes, blessings fall right into your lap when you least expect them.

This morning, my wife went to visit her grandma in the nursing home.  Her grandmother has been a resident there for several years.  She's approaching her mid-nineties in age, and her memory started slipping away a while ago.  These days, she mixes people up in her head.  Every time my wife visits, her grandma calls her "Cheryl."  Cheryl was my wife's mother who died of ovarian cancer close to 20 years ago.  Her grandma is convinced she's going home any day, and is mad at her husband for not visiting.  ("He's out at camp drinking with his brother," she often says.  He's been dead for quiet some time.)

Visiting her grandma is a little sad.  She has moments of lucidity, but, for the most part, she simply drifts in and out of sleep.

I just received a phone call from my wife.  She was crying.  Through her sobs, I could make out a few words:  "grandma" and "visit" and "lunch" and "name."  Of course, I tried to establish some kind of narrative.  Her grandma had died during her visit while she was having lunch with someone whose name she didn't know.  Or her grandma's lunch ended with a visit from a circus clown wearing a name tag.  I had no clue what she was trying to say.

Finally, she said, "She knew my name.  I was sitting there having a conversation with her, and she said my name.  I haven't heard her say my name in years."  She was quiet for a minute, and then she said, "It was nice to talk with her."

A surprise blessing for Saint Marty's wife.  Amen.

Not a good surprise.

September 22: Grandma's Birthday, Beer Bread and Dip, Hallelujah!

Hallelujah!  It is Thursday, and I have made it through another week without making an idiot of myself in front of my students, and without having a complete breakdown.

I don't have much time to post.  I'm heading off to a birthday party for my wife's grandma who turned 93 yesterday.  She suffers from Alzheimer's and is confused quite most of the time.  Sometimes I think these parties are a little cruel to have.  She stares around at the people in the room like she knows she should recognize them, but she can't.  I feel bad for her.

However, there's going to be beer bread and dip, so I can't pass that up.

Tomorrow, I promise a new poem.  It will be good.  Well, it will be new, anyway.

Saint Marty's gotta fly.

Food of the gods--beer bread and dip