Witnessing the necessary business of end of life for people I love has been changing.
At one time, my nightmare was getting a call notifying me that someone had died. Especially after moving away. Something about leaving the vicinity made me feel like they were more in danger.
Once we all aged another decade, it became apparent to me for the first time that death isn't the worst thing that can happen to people. After a certain unspoken mile post, it's better to go. I still fear the phone call, though.
It's hard to organize thoughts around the decline and eventual death of someone close. Feels like a familiar subject, but each occasion is new no matter how prepared you may feel by prior experiences.
The same universal questions always come. However childish they may feel, no matter how unanswered they've gone in the past. When it's someone you know, someone you're intimately tied to, all you can ask is where they're going when they die. It's impossible to imagine that their lives just end like a shut door. How can this personality, this set of experiences and opinions just stop?
My grandma is just hanging around, waiting. She's not in pain, and she's in her right mind, but I know from experience that the longer she spends in the bed, the more lucidity we'll lose. But she still remembers, still participates in conversations and still has an edge, still has her humor.
It took me a minute to get there, about her. We moved her to a home and I thought it was over. But my mom brings me there and gives me a chair and tells Gram about something new and Gram responds like the same person she always was, and I suddenly become more comfortable. Oh, she's still here, I re-remember each time. I don't have to yell when I talk, I don't have to explain who people are. I'm the one who's being weird. I'm the one who's scared, not her.
I had all of her furniture shipped to me when we had to move her out of her house and close it down, and later she said, amused, "Send me a picture of your house with all my old shit in it." It made me cringe a little, but she's very irreverent now. Gave up her role of authority and control of her life, her home of 40 years, with so much grace. She trusts my mother with her care in a way that I think is the real lesson in all of this. She is able to release without fear, and that is a freedom, concession, right, privilege? that not everyone has. Would anyone take care of you like that? It's a fair question.
My grandma on my dad's side of the family peaced out the minute she couldn't have her life the way she wanted, and that was exactly what she would have wanted. The last few years included some medical troubles, too many doctors and at the end an oxygen tank, but that was so brief. She was gone so fast, not everyone had time to get to the hospital. I was there, it was the only time I've ever seen someone die in real time and while it left a permanent dent on me, I'm glad I was there.
My grandfather died this summer. Aged 96, another wild one who died the moment he couldn't take care of himself alone. When I took that call, I was out battling my sprinkler box at 7:30 AM on a Monday morning. I could only drop my head and sigh, it still felt a little surprising. One month prior, he had been sitting on his 80s exercise bike watching westerns on TV, and then he was gone. It's sad to lose someone so intriguing and mysterious, we hardly knew him compared to my grandmas, but I'm happy that it happened in the way that it did, because I still know it's what he wanted. Minimal discomfort, no dehumanization.
Going through all my grandma's saved stuff has me thinking about her whole life. Her as a girl in the 50s, all Frankie Avalon and long wool skirts. I have a funny poem she wrote back then, and a sweet pin spelling "Marilyn" in gold wire meant to be attached to the ubiquitous sweater, a special gift from mom and dad in 1952. She doesn't seem to remember those days fondly, which is hard for me to understand even though I know that life lived in person is different. She was never one to paint the past with sentimentality just because it was past. It doesn't seem like it was that bad either though - she just doesn't sentimentalize anything that isn't about us, kids and grandkids, or funny things that happened over time, friends.
Gram moved to Phoenix as a young mother, and her parents soon followed. It's still shocking to me that anyone would willingly live in a place that hot and unforgiving, dry, scorched, relentless. I guess I'm the only one who doesn't get it, doesn't have the fortitude. My dad says I'm a fool not to come back and I look around and think, moi?
And when I do go, I drive the streets and see dozens of memories in the same ten mile area, like a small town. That's where Grammy shopped, where I went to pre-school, that's where my boyfriend worked, that's where my parents met, that's where my whole life happened. Do I have to be there personally to endorse it now? It'll always be there, probably. If it gets bulldozed, nothing I can do. How's that for accepting change? A new tack for me.
And when I do go, I drive the streets and see dozens of memories in the same ten mile area, like a small town. That's where Grammy shopped, where I went to pre-school, that's where my boyfriend worked, that's where my parents met, that's where my whole life happened. Do I have to be there personally to endorse it now? It'll always be there, probably. If it gets bulldozed, nothing I can do. How's that for accepting change? A new tack for me.
Gram must have had a scare or dream at some point in recent years, because she suddenly started telling me stories from her childhood during Covid. Normally, she rarely tells stories unless they're anecdotes that include one of us, to make a point. I don't usually ask for tales because she's so austere and testy and could shut it down. "Oh I don't remember!" Like it was something dumb. The recent stories aren't developed, often lack a point, because they seem to be things she's only just recently thought about.
"They used to say I was going to marry my cousin Dickie. He lived across the street. We were the same age. They always said, 'Marilyn can marry Dickie.' I guess it was cute then, but doesn't it sound bad now?" Yes, Gram. They didn't think you could do better than Dickie across the street? She was a babe, and smart. Smart babes don't have to marry cousins.
She looked like Shirley MacLaine back then, a real cutie pie type. Slender, well dressed, good hair, beestung lips, big wide eyes. Sorry Dickie, but no need to keep it in the family, RIP Dickie btw. All of her stories from life are these incomplete sentences: about getting married at 18: "I didn't want to be an old maid!" About her dad: "He was the guy down the hall." But she took good care of her mother until she died at 89. Little freaky how long these people live.
Grandparents are so weird. Some are strangers and some are your other parents. My grandmothers on both sides were just more mothers, to the point that I'm surprised when I learn that other people never knew their grandmothers. I never thought about that. I find myself vaguely judging those who had no relationships with their old generations, like how did you have personal context for the world that was before you? I know I can't really understand how much they contributed to my development as a person, but I know I'd be so much more deficient without it. Intangibles.
My grandma was always into metaphysics and eastern religious philosophy. We didn't know what it was at the time, just that it wasn't usual in our world. I was in the middle of grade school when my mom gave up on a united front and agreed with me, laughingly, "Gram's kind of weird, right?" I was so relieved, thinking only I noticed. Nevertheless, my Gram casually tried to retrain my obstinately western views as a child and I osmosed some of her beliefs at a young age, young enough that you accept anything you hear from an authority. She says I've lived many lives before; did she? Do I imagine this is more credible because it's the view of someone I know, who raised me? If anyone else said it, I'd roll my eyes.
She simplified her life in her political phase, which came after she retired. Every time I went to the house, Air America blasted from multiple radios scattered throughout the rooms while she puttered around. She closely followed and supported Cindy Sheehan's camp at the Bush ranch in Texas. It was the time of Katrina and we had so many concerns to share together. My political awareness had grown around the same time, due to my confusion at the Bush win in 2000 and my rage at his second election in 2004.
When Bush won the second time, I was done with apolitical living. It felt wrong and I was angry, really politically angry for the first time. I was even more angry to see people I knew, people my age, buying in to the pro-war narrative. It was the first time I appreciated my grandma's strong convictions for what they were. She was furious, intense, and talked politics often. It was always on her mind, and she was volunteering and engaging in many ways. Suddenly, we related on a whole other level. She was so engaged that I got my news from her half the time because she was so plugged into the daily developments.
She and I started sitting with heads together at family parties and dinners, more than usual. We had always been close, but this connection was different from anything we had ever had before. We engaged as two equals conversationally for the first time in my nascent adult life, but that context was limited to politics. She still ribbed and jived me over my 20-something activities. My mom said we were rude to talk about about it so much. Any time she complained about my grandma, I was with her until she got to the overt politics, when I'd say, one flagging finger raised, "Gotta disagree with you there, because she's right about..." Which would trigger a fight between us at which point she would fall back in her chair, palms raised, so tired of us.
In Austin in November 2016, I went for drinks after work on election night with some visiting global execs, cool longtime environmental types who made good into the c-suite, and we tentatively shared our mutual confidence. It was a rare occasion for their visit and it felt auspicious: "Just a matter of time," we all agreed, before high-fiving and dispersing to our respective watch parties. My boyfriend came over with dinner and champagne. It was a work night, but we were celebrating the end of a tense and ugly campaign. Hours later, when he eventually slunk away to bed after a shocking loss, I went outside, sat on the ground and called my grandma in tears.
She answered her landline at that late hour because she was still up, too. It heartened me to hear her dejected voice at that first moment, a bit of authenticity, but she quickly gathered herself and told me that we would get through this, and would be ok. She always felt obliged to be an official adult, like a boss at a corporation, sharing the company line. I guess she was right, technically. I was glad to have her at that moment, was conscious of it at the time. My mother has always been my first call during dramatic or uncertain times, but this was a night when only Gram would do. It's hard for me to think of a future where that's not an option, but we're already there. I know this should tie up nicely with my saying I'm glad for all we had, and I am, but I'm still pissed off that it's ending.
I recently tried to get her to talk about her early life and her parents again. I always want more because she's always been so god damn reticent. She doesn't want to talk about it now and I let it go, quietly disappointed when she says she just doesn't think about the past, which must be true. She just won't let us have them, those typical grandma moments, and never would. I remember in childhood laughing with my mom about how my grandma on my dad's side was Mrs. Baking Cookies while my Gram had an empty refrigerator because she was often out with her hip friends at Phoenix Magazine parties at night, or checking out new restaurants.
But my Gram always treated herself well and prioritized herself in a way that was bold and thoughtful, but not selfish. She made her home beautiful and peaceful and interesting for herself, but in a way that benefited us, too. Her own company was reason enough, but it was safe and pretty and a little spiritual for me too. Back then it was bright airy clean spaces, a smell of lavender, esoteric books stacked on side tables with quiet indoor wind chimes in an air conditioner breeze, and a cat snoozing in a sunny window. And she always took careful care of me, talking to me about my dad and whether he was being good to me (she loved him and called him pet names but wanted to know for sure), buying me school clothes when my frazzled mom might have forgotten to get me new stuff to wear if I hadn't grown out of my old stuff yet.
Every time I see my grandma now, I tell her I love her and she says the same. I can tell that I'm in some amorphous grandchild space where everything I say is amusing or needs work (per her corrections) but is generally neutral and positive. Meanwhile, she and my mom spar over almost everything. They still go at it in the same old way and I keep telling my mom to fall back, but she can't, she cannot, and I have to respect it even though I disagree with it.
But none of that matters now, the flailing and all of it. It'll all be long gone soon and I'll even miss this time when she's so alone and weak even with our care. All I want to know is where is she going? Where is she now, really? What was it all for? The answers never come, and they never will.
Gram's political phase stuck and she's been like that ever since. Up to the last couple of months, every time I called her, she'd ask me "Did you see..." (XYZ political outrage). Hell yes, I'd say, or hell no tell me. My mom would wander off, perpetually at Gram's house, saying, "Ok you two talk while I clean up, cause I don't want to hear it." She's the same way in her retirement home, not up to date on anything but still holding strong. It's too bad to tell her now. And after Trump was elected, my mom suddenly felt unable to stay out of it herself. Now she's telling me about the news, since I have checked into a need to know state only.
---
On election night in 2012, I was sitting crosslegged in Gram's living room, eating pizza on her black marble 1960s coffee table, just us two like so many prior nights together in that space. She served us Trader Joe's red in those tiny Italian wine glasses, and we watched the returns with braced confidence. When it was called for Obama early in the night, we looked at each other and nodded with pleasure, This is a message to the right, and they will never win again...
She answered her landline at that late hour because she was still up, too. It heartened me to hear her dejected voice at that first moment, a bit of authenticity, but she quickly gathered herself and told me that we would get through this, and would be ok. She always felt obliged to be an official adult, like a boss at a corporation, sharing the company line. I guess she was right, technically. I was glad to have her at that moment, was conscious of it at the time. My mother has always been my first call during dramatic or uncertain times, but this was a night when only Gram would do. It's hard for me to think of a future where that's not an option, but we're already there. I know this should tie up nicely with my saying I'm glad for all we had, and I am, but I'm still pissed off that it's ending.
I recently tried to get her to talk about her early life and her parents again. I always want more because she's always been so god damn reticent. She doesn't want to talk about it now and I let it go, quietly disappointed when she says she just doesn't think about the past, which must be true. She just won't let us have them, those typical grandma moments, and never would. I remember in childhood laughing with my mom about how my grandma on my dad's side was Mrs. Baking Cookies while my Gram had an empty refrigerator because she was often out with her hip friends at Phoenix Magazine parties at night, or checking out new restaurants.
She was raised in small town Montana, where it seemed like it was snowy all the time. Unlike other people I know from that area, she never talked about the cold. Never complained about it, never told tall tales about it, even to us desert people. Her parents ran a local restaurant and she often had to get herself up for school as a child in that freezing relentless place because her mother was doing first shift while her father slept after closing the restaurant, which was open late. She always went to school and she always tried even when none of her adults were watching. I know she resented that, and once mentioned the criticism of a lifelong girlhood friend, who said my grandma's parents were never around when they should have been, because they were at work. That was my first insight into the fact that my Gram's young life wasn't as charming as we always assumed. But I also think it was a class thing, her family didn't have the financial freedom to do cute stuff that required parent participation during the work day. Her parents were both 1 gen from immigrants and were doing so much better than their parents ever had. So they thought they were doing good despite their struggles.
Nevertheless, it was hard for me to understand that her hyper-maternal mother wasn't there for her all the time when she was growing up, because her mother was always there for me as a kid, as a scaffolding to life itself, more than 50 years later. My Grammy; my mother's grandmother, always there for us both.
But my Gram always treated herself well and prioritized herself in a way that was bold and thoughtful, but not selfish. She made her home beautiful and peaceful and interesting for herself, but in a way that benefited us, too. Her own company was reason enough, but it was safe and pretty and a little spiritual for me too. Back then it was bright airy clean spaces, a smell of lavender, esoteric books stacked on side tables with quiet indoor wind chimes in an air conditioner breeze, and a cat snoozing in a sunny window. And she always took careful care of me, talking to me about my dad and whether he was being good to me (she loved him and called him pet names but wanted to know for sure), buying me school clothes when my frazzled mom might have forgotten to get me new stuff to wear if I hadn't grown out of my old stuff yet.
My mom took a girlhood friend to see her recently. Someone who was always around in grade school. This friend took the opportunity to tell Gram all of the things you say when someone you care for is at the end of life, like it was her last day. That she always admired her, wished she had been her own mother in those critical childhood days when the friend had an absentee mother and a cruel stepmother. My mom was quietly aghast, unaware of her friend's feelings. She sat in silence watching an outsider effortlessly pour affection on the person whose mortality she's barely faced herself. She's processing it in real time, and realizing that all of her criticisms and pains look so different to someone outside of the family, who had a lot less.
A lot of things like that are happening right now and we all act like it's normal and like we have all the time in the world to process it, because we don't know how to act. Don't know how to be, without her active guidance. Having to learn it on our own, a group of only two instead of three, used to be four. Our coven of women.
A lot of things like that are happening right now and we all act like it's normal and like we have all the time in the world to process it, because we don't know how to act. Don't know how to be, without her active guidance. Having to learn it on our own, a group of only two instead of three, used to be four. Our coven of women.
Every time I see my grandma now, I tell her I love her and she says the same. I can tell that I'm in some amorphous grandchild space where everything I say is amusing or needs work (per her corrections) but is generally neutral and positive. Meanwhile, she and my mom spar over almost everything. They still go at it in the same old way and I keep telling my mom to fall back, but she can't, she cannot, and I have to respect it even though I disagree with it.
Gram always sought me out as a kid, even or especially when I tried to push her off. Calling my mom and making her make me talk to her before bed when I was a child and fuming about something, or when she knew I was home alone as a teen, calling just to talk on endless summer afternoons, making me pause my discman. We would talk on the phone and look at the same Magic Eye pages together at the same time, at her mandate, one of us hollering when we finally saw it.
But none of that matters now, the flailing and all of it. It'll all be long gone soon and I'll even miss this time when she's so alone and weak even with our care. All I want to know is where is she going? Where is she now, really? What was it all for? The answers never come, and they never will.
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